When It Rains, It Pours, and Other Cliches About Happiness

I have been pretty busy for the last month or so. I started a new job, a summer class, and I moved to a new place. Whew!

I've decided to withdraw from the class for multiple reasons, financial and otherwise, but aside from that (and I have another post planned on the subject) everything is pretty great for me right now.

Two of my chief sources of unhappiness in recent years have been my inability to find enjoyable employment and the fact that I was still staying with my parents. Both of those things seemed like insurmountable problems, and I often felt I was collapsing under the weight of them.

The tide started to turn in early April, when I replied to a listserv email (I posted about this already) about a room. I finally moved in during the first weekend in May, and have settled nicely. I like my roommates (human and feline alike), it's a great location, and the space is a good one.

In addition to preparing to move, I was also hunting for a different job. While my previous position at the school library was perfectly alright, the distance and commute were making me unhappy. Then, again, fate happened. My mother forwarded a post to me from the Purl Bee, saying that the knitting and fabric shop Purl Soho was hiring. What you had to do to apply was go to the store before opening one Saturday, with a resume and some crafty samples, and talk to the managers. So I did. And they invited me back for a second interview the following week, which was a bit more of a practical test where I had to recommend yarns for a pattern and organize fabrics by color. Well, I must have done all of that right because they hired me!

So now on top of having my own space in a cute apartment in a great neighborhood, I have a part-time job at a really nice store, working with pretty great people and talking about something I love to do. Sure, I come home with aching feet, but I also come home smiling.

I haven't felt good about my life in a long time. It's a feeling I don't always know how to handle, but I like it. Sometimes, I catch myself smiling for no reason, which is something that never used to happen. It's a nice new development.