CP has finally found a job, relieving much of my stress and his. I made him promise not to quit his next job without having something to fall back on.

I tired to explain this without coming off as a total bitch. On one hand, I felt like a hypocrite because I'd just quit my job. A relatively well-paying job with security, benefits, and paid vacation time. I quit to start up a new business with virtually no business esperience, and a shitt part-time retail job. I did all this because Corporate America made me miserable, made me a depressed shell of myself.

Of all people, I completely understood his need to leave a job that made him utterly unhappy. A job that took him out of the state for several days, even weeks, at a time...away from home, away from me. It kept him under the thumb of his stubborn father and grandfather, kept him living out in the sticks, feeling unhealthy and unsatisfied.

Instead of asking him, "Have you found a job yet?", I found the right words to say.

"I'm stressed that you quit your job because that leaves two of us with no security. No insurance, no benefits, and no steady income between the two of us."

"But I won't be a burden on you," he said, "I'll never make you take care of me."

"I'm not worried about you being a burden on me. If I had the money, I'd pay the bills for the both of us. I'd take care of us until you found the job you really want. It's not the money I'm worried about...I mean, it's not that I'm worried about you not being able to pay, or me not being able to pay...I'm worried that neither of us will be able to!"

It was just an added stress that I was not prepared for, and ill-equipped to handle right now.

The rose-colored glasses have come off, and we're in the Reality of our relationship now. I don't mean to say that we're having hellacious screaming matches and ripping each other's faces off. Nono, I think he's as wonderful as ever. But the truth is, I'm a neat freak and he's...well...he's not. I'm super-organized and anal retentive, he's absent minded and forgetful. He can make a room look like it was hit by a natural disaster faster than I can blink, he leaves his socks on the living room floor, and forgets to pull the shower curtain closed...but when he curls his body around mine at night and says, "I'm so happy I met you. You're my favorite Shannon in the whole wide world, you know that?", I know I couldn't be happier.

The fact that things were so picture perfect at the beginning made me worry. I figured it was too good to be true; no one can be this fantastic, no one can treat me this way and be genuine. I'm almost relieved to find the little things about him that annoy me, or to disagree, or to find that our relationship takes work. It makes it real. It is real.

I'm quitting JAF today. I got a new job (told ya it wouldn't be hard to find another part-time gig!). I'm going to be working for [email protected] the call center. I'll be an email specialist. The perks: $2 an hour more than JAF. The SAME hours every week. Discount at 0ld N@vy and G@P. Potential for a full-time gig (read:benefits)...and full-time there is 30 hours. I'll currently be working 28. The non-perks: I have to work 5-10:30 at night...which means less time with CP. However. I will get to work on my business all day, which is the BIGGEST and most important perk of all.

I'll have to write about all the reasons I've become so disenchanted with JAF recently...but that's an entire entry in itself. I feel badly about quitting after only 6 months, but I never had any intention of using this job as a resume bulider. It was just a temporary thing to help me make extra cash during a rough time. It's run its course. I stayed at Shit Job far too long, because I was afraid to leave. Why the hell should I be afraid to leave some half-assed retail job that's become just as stressful? Will I ever stop being the most worrysome person on earth? I doubt it.

Oooh! I almost forgot! Check out the labels I had made to sew into my corsets:

Fabulous!