exhale....

So effective tomorrow, I am free. No more oppressive job atmosphere. It's over. And I am soooooo relieved.

Definitely also a little frightened, because ...well ..... I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do next. Well I mean I know what I'm going to do next, like... immediately next. I have an appointment to discuss a consulting job on Thursday. And I guess there are one or two more gigs I could line up. But after that ....?

Then there's the fact that I've been wanting to do this -- consulting -- for so long. Remember the other thing about my job that was so hugely important to me that I said it deserved its own post? Yeah... consulting is it. And they have turned me down, because in my line of work, anything you do away from the office needs to be disclosed to and approved by your firm. And they weren't about to approve my consulting side business. Which really, really pissed me off. Along with so many other things about the company, which I'm not about to rehash now because they're all there in the last post, and I just get pissed off thinking about the daily stress that this job causes me and for WHAT?

So yeah ... now, no more pissedoffiness. I'm relieved. I'm even happy (but not without some reservations and fear). I'm looking forward to a little bit of down time after ALL this stress. I'm looking forward to having the freedom to head up to Jacksonville to help Chulo and OHMYGOD I just realised that there's another update I've failed to give ....

Chulo got a job here.

And he is moving to South Florida in 3 weeks.

Oh, and... he's moving in with me.

Yeah, all my friends were totally shocked. Most of them finally got a chance to meet him last weekend (I've been keeping him all to myself -- but can you blame me? He's totally cute) and they loved him. Which is really important to me, because I love my friends like family. It was kinda funny though, because he wound up telling most of them... and at that, it was almost like he was telling them in passing. He didn't know that I hadn't told them... I just hadn't had time to update them! So ya see? It's not just bloggy peeps that were in the dark.

Nat already knew. I needed at least one voice of reason to support my decision when I made it (Tuesday afternoon) and she was the one I turned to.

The family doesn't know yet; we're going to tell them together next weekend when we're up there before the wedding. I'm not sure how they'll react but I've thought about it a lot, and Chulo's thought about it a lot, and we both seem really content with who we are, and who we are together. I admit it took some self-convincing to be comfortable with this decision, but I think in large part I'm just scared... I mean, how many times have we said to ourselves in life, "this is the one" and then discovered several weeks/months/years down the line that no, we were wrong, this is most definitely NOT the one. And I'm afraid to have to go through that kind of failure again. But I've been waiting a long time for someone like him to come into my life and now that he's here, I don't want to let my insecurities get in the way of my happiness and our chance at happiness together. And I can always remind mom and dad that they were living together like the same week they met. When it's right, it's right.

Leaving this job feels right. Being with Chulo feels right. Both are scary propositions, both will take a lot of work, a lot of faith in self, and a lot of compromise. But I think I'm ready.

Just breathe.