Nothing but smiles...
You know a year ago, I never would have imagined where I'd be at this moment... I was happily comfortable back then with a good job, a girlfriend, a new car, a nice apartment with my best friend, and the future looked bright... but it all came crashing down around me a week later when I was laid off. I think back now and know that it was probably one of the best things to happen to me, even though it caused me so much suffering and depression. The nice apartment was expensive and so was the new car... unemployment checks only last so long... and credit-cards still want their money. I juggled paying this and paying that... my step-dad let me borrow money just so i could pay my last months rent without being evicted. I spent at least 4 hours a day e-mailing resumes, looking at job-sites, faxing resumes, talking to recruiters, and going to the occasional interview. But it was all the same, "You were one of our top canidates, however you lack the experience we desire". I would scavenge pennies from the couch, just to buy my girlfriend a slushie. She stayed there through it all, and I kept a smile on my face, for awhile. Six months went by as I fell from having everything I had worked so hard to get til finally I was offered a new job. I felt miserable, it was a cold snowy January and I had so much debt, and the job paid only a little more than my first one... plus that and they wanted me to work 60 hours a week and that would leave me no time to enjoy my life. Not a week later I was offered another job for ten dollars more an hour, and a regular schedule... but I had to move to Wichita.
It was six months ago that I moved here. And the first month was like a nightmare, between the girlfriend staying with another guy, not being close to the two friends I had here, and not having anything but TV to watch, The smile I had worn though the difficult times quickly faded away. And I finally had to let go of my worries... the girl and I broke-up, I spent every dime on paying the debts, and slowly I began to climb, back from the depths of losing it all, and now I'm a thousand times better because of it all.
I just never would have thought that moving here would make me as happy as I am now. Pretty soon all my negative bills will be paid off, I've already paid off one credit card, I found out yesterday that my company is making me a permanant offer to be a design engineer for new product development, I have the most wonderful friends that are very close to me, I've gone out with Raquel a couple times, I've gotten to visit Charity and see Megan, I'm moving into a new place soon that will have a garage for my car, I'll have a really sweet girl named MJ for my roommate hopefully, I've got some really great guys to work with who are much closer to my age than the guys at my last job, and most importantly I know that I can survive all the little obstacles that may come my way. It's not always all these materialistic things that make a person truley happy, it's more about being true to myself and just knowing that I'm in control of my world again. The opportunities that come along sometimes make for tough decisions, but I know that no matter what I do decide, I can handle it. I guess it's about never losing sight of what you want... I've always set goals and dreamed big, and I know I'm determined enough to get there, no matter how far I get knocked down.
I just can't stop smiling. Things are going really well. Raquel and I went on a picnic and had some fruit in the park last night, rented the Notebook... which was an utterly depressing, but such a sweet movie, I wish more people knew true love like that. Dropped her off and went and played some pool at Quincy's. Not sure whats going on tonight. MJ and I are going to dinner after work, and maybe we can go out dancing after that. JJ's supposed to be in town tommorow, so I'm not going back to KC this weekend. I figure if I go to this audition on the 7th, I can organize the garage shit then. But I also wanna race my car on the strip the night of the 6th... but I have a chip in my windshield, which I think will prevent me from racing... so Maybe we'll go up the night of the 6th and hang out in KC. Oh, and if you didn't read above, my company is offering me a full time position as a design engineer for new product development... hard decision to make... do I want money or do I want security... if I accept the offer it's prolly a 12grand paycut at least compared to what I'm making now... but if I accept, I'm more likely to keep my job a lot longer... I suppose I'll get back to work, since I've been typing this sparadically all day.