I got a job!!!!!!!

It’s hard to know where to begin. How about the numbers?

9 months

500 applications (at least)

50 interviews

1 job.

A JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Plus a side job editing stuff that I can continue to do to bring in some extra money each week.

Plus some freelancing.

And I sold the house.

On top of that, this new job pays nearly 30 percent more than the old one in Fargo (which is about right for the difference between here and there according to some sites). After 9 months of trying to pay for a wedding, going DEEP into credit debt, trying to figure out how to make $50 last the week when one gas fill up takes most of that, trying to remain sane, I have a new job that starts on Monday. Yesterday, we were wondering how the hell we were going to pay rent in June. Today, we are planning a budget that more than doubles what we were “living” on.

I can soon get an oil change for my car that has muscled through 5000 miles since the last mechanic set eyes on her.

I can soon own more than one pair of kacki pants.

I can get new shoes after 2.5 years on the last pair, daily.

I can have more than a carl budding lunch meat sandwich and ramen for lunch every day.

24 hours ago, we were trying to figure out how to come up with 1500 for a bankruptcy lawyer. Today, we can decide to go through a credit counseling service instead. They couldn’t help me before without a steady income.

Tomorrow, I have a therapy appointment. I’m still going, cause you’re probably wondering why I haven’t been already for criminy sake.

Job hunting has never been this hard in my life. It has been brutal. Painful. Confusing. Madening. Frustrating. Full of moments that seem like, "This is it, this is the one!" and then having that job pulled from your open hands, and then crushed in front of you. And every time you see Romney saying he's jobless, or see some politician on tv talking about how jobless people need to just get back to work you want to punch their grandchildren while they watch. Better yet, make them apply to jobs they are more than qualified for for 9 months without landing anything.

Every job advice column grates on you. You follow the advice, you blame yourself, you want to scream at HR computers who disqualify you without explanation.

Its experiences like this that people with jobs just don’t understand. It’s so easy to get comfortable, to think that you are a highly qualified, great worker with impecable references and qualifications. But the moment you take that leap into the unknown and find out how none of that means squat in a new hiring computer system that rejects you without a chance after you spent 2 hours filling out their stupid forms that repeat every goddamn thing that is already on your resume. Yet, don't accept that where you are is where you will have to be forever. Fear of leaving a job you hate can be just as soul-killing as trying to land a job you'll love.

Yeah, today is a day full of relief, fear, confusion, a new ability to breathe. I’m still trying to process it. It’s going to take a long time to recover.

Cee Lo, I need to go enjoy this breathing thing, please take it from here:

(addition): Long talk with the wife last night on how to be smart about this. How not to do the dumb thing and go money crazy the first month. We can live with our laptop that's missing a P button and has a cord held together by duct tape. We can live with the couch that got messed up in the move so now it feels like sitting on the floor. Slowly, carefully, we will crawl our way back to normalcy.