Raining and Pouring

Jason got a job this week, after being unemployed for six months. Unless you've spent six months wondering how you were going to pay rent, insurance, tuition, and still eat, it would be hard to understand how I feel right now.

He texted me with the news on Monday, just before my eleven am class. I heard the little tinkle of notification and thought, "I'd better turn that off before my next class." And then I read the message: "I got a job." The brevity, I admit, annoyed me. This is the kind of news you want to shout about, but also be as specific about as possible. So I called him, which, if you know me well, you know is a big thing. I avoid talking on the phone at all costs.

"A real job?" I asked. He'd been working temp work off and on, whenever there was something for him to do at a construction site, which is how we had managed to scrape by for the past half year.

"Yep."

"Like, a real job? A permanent job?"

"Yep."

And that's when I let myself feel the relief and the joy. The worry had been getting worse and worse the last few weeks. When Jason first lost his job, I was confident that everything would work out, that he would find another job, that we would be able to pay our bills and save money to move back home in April. But the months passed, and we were saved by miracles every month at rent time. To be honest, I'd held on to my confidence until the past two weeks. I just kept hearing about how bad the economy was, and watching businesses and banks collapse, and I started thinking that if Jason couldn't find a job when the economy wasn't as bad, how was he supposed to find one now, when companies like Circuit City are going out of business?

The reversal of roles was sort of comical to me. When we were eating dinner on Saturday, I'd started to melt down. I like to think that I have a pretty high stress tolerance. I usually work best under pressure, and I'd held it together for almost six months. But suddenly, I couldn't take it. I was worried about how we were going to pay rent in two weeks, how we were going to pay back the short-term loan for my tuition this semester (which is currently the reason my parents don't know I have a blog. After all, there are some things you shouldn't tell my dad until after it's all over), how things were going to work out with the speeding ticket I got last year (long story), and how I was going to handle 5 English/editing classes in this, my last semester of college. Oh yeah. And I'm supposed to be looking for potential employers back in Washington for when I graduate in April. Right.

Suddenly, Jason was the one with all the reassuring confidences. And I suddenly realized how he had been feeling all those times when he would slip into a melencholy mood that I couldn't pull him out of. Even if you know in your head that yes, everything will be okay--after all, we're two intelligent people who can find our way out of a mess--it's a lot harder to believe it in that emotional part of me I call my heart.

So when Jason finally explained the details, and I finally believed that it was real, I realized that I had never really felt relief and gratitude before. Corny, but true.

Oh, and the speeding ticket thing turned out okay, too. According to my driving record, that was merely a bad dream. So it's been a week of good news and sighs of relief. Hurrah!