01/19/12 - 9:28 a.m.

God, what a relief.

Usually, I'm just "hunkering down" to try to avoid the stress of - everything. Living in a new town that's 3 hours away from the old town - and a town that's different. And the fear that my girlfriend won't fit in at work.

But yesterday, we finally just gave up, realizing "It's not us -- it's them." Her workplace is just nuts. And we'd already realized this town was too much of a culture shock. What I'm surprised about is just how relieved I feel...

I think I'd been pressuring myself to make this work. "You vill love this town. That workplace is your fatherland." Something like that. It's not. It's screwy. It's not a good fit. It's not what we want to do.

Honestly, I think there were money considerations in a lot of this. Originally my girlfriend just wanted a job -- and this certainly was that. Good things happened because she took it -- she had the money to hire a fitness trainer, and her resume obviously now has "recent work experience" without that big gap from before. But today is also exhilarating for another reason. Neither she nor I have a job now, but we're both confident that we'll find one.

So it's hope times two!