Struggling.

I want to preface this post with ensuring everyone that I’m not bipolar. I know this is going to sound pretty opposite of the post I wrote the other day about being so much happier and a different person now that I’ve made the changes I have this year. All of that is still true, tonight is just a bad one. I normally try to stay as upbeat as possible when writing in this, because it makes me focus on the positive and gives me happy thoughts to come back to when I’m feeling down. Unfortunately, nothing currently written in here is helping tonight, and I need to get this out of my head. Please bear with me while I pour my heart out.

Justin hasn’t found a job in Erie yet. In fact, he hasn’t even received a single call back from any of the resumes he has sent out. Mind you, there hasn’t been much available to apply for, but at this point he’s 0 for 5 or so. The economy is bad enough in the rest of the country, but when you’re in a tiny town like Erie, there are even less openings on the job market, and if you don’t already live here, no one is interested in hiring you.

Meanwhile, I’ve been getting call after call from contracting companies in Pittsburgh, offering jobs I haven’t applied for. The whole point of my leaving was to get away from the contract employment. I was tired of being in limbo every few months, and having a permanent position the past two months, with no end in sight, has been an amazing feeling. At this point, though, it’s hard to not consider my options. As everyone keeps telling me, this is my “dream job”, but as I told Justin today, it’s not a dream worth having if it’s without him.

I don’t know how much longer I can handle this. I don’t think I have it in me to survive this long-distance thing for any extended amount of time. It’s not getting any easier to say goodbye every Sunday, and it’s not getting any easier to fall asleep without him every night.

At this point I’m trying to decide how much longer to wait before calling back those companies and seeing what they have to offer. I’m thinking if Justin isn’t here or at least on the verge of something by June, I’m going to look into going back to Pittsburgh. I figure half a year should be enough time to get the mental cleansing I need by being back home, and should be enough time for Justin to find something. If not, maybe this was just another part of our life that wasn’t meant to work the way we thought, and it’ll be time to try another route.

Who knows, maybe I’ll come home from Vegas and instead of unpacking, do the opposite, pack up everything else, and head back to the burgh. I guess we’ll see what happens. Until then, I guess I’m just going to have to deal with the ups and downs that come from only seeing him on the weekends, and push myself to survive the weeks in between.

Anyone have any tips on surviving the long-distance thing? I’ve never really had to deal with it before, so maybe there’s something to ease the process that I don’t know about yet?