EMPLOYED.

Our long national nightmare is over!

I've been waiting to write this post for a long time. I've been waiting for this celebration for a long time. I mean, a loooong time.

This morning, I received a job offer from a PR firm in the area, and I will be starting my new job on Thursday! LET'S GO!

To put this situation in perspective, the lease at my apartment runs out at the end of October. For those of you for whom math is not your specialty, that means I was going to have to vacate my apartment in 14 days.

Needless to say, I canceled that move-out request. I may need to move at some point, but I don't even want to think about that right now. I'll see how this goes for a little while, and if it doesn't work, I'll reassess later.

I may or may not have (but definitely DID) reenact Andy's rain scene from Shawshank in the shower this morning. I am overwhelmed with so many feelings right now. Relief, joy, excitement, anxiousness. I don't even know how to process everything I'm feeling. So great.

I love everybody right now!

It's been a hell of a time the past nine months. The late winter and early spring was a really, really rough time for me because of the unemployment thing. It led to me becoming a little too depressed for my own good. I gained way too much weight. I stopped caring about a lot of things. I directly blame that for ruining some things I would have preferred not being ruined. Don't get me wrong; I know it's on me. I let a bad situation get to me, and it threw a wrench into quite a few things, which is really a shame given how awesome I've been since.

But!!

I am so thoroughly thrilled to say I don't have an OUNCE of negativity in me anymore. I am 100 percent optimism and energy. As I've happily documented on this blog, since mid-April, I've been a completely different person. Just take a stroll through the archives to see the transformation.

Since then, my life has been so completely amazing. I've met some incredibly awesome people, who I'm ridiculously pumped to call my friends. I've started playing softball and flag football. I'm going out with my friends like twice a week. I've been to Raleigh and Charlotte a few times and to Savannah. And I'm going to Boston next month. And, oh yeah, I've lost more than 40 pounds and counting.

So much good has been going on, and I've been so completely happy. Only one thing has prevented me from calling this the best time of my life: I didn't have a full-time job.

Literally everything else about my life was better than it had ever been before -- except the job situation.

Now, that is no longer the case. I am so excited about this job. It's a perfect opportunity for me to get in there and prove myself again. I cannot emphasize enough how ready I am to run through walls to get things done. I am so fired up.

It has been such a roller coaster this year. Including phone interviews, I've had more than 20 or 25 interviews. I've been a finalist four times. I've gotten so close so many times. It's heart-wrenching to get that close only to be denied and sent back to the beginning of the process.

But that is all in the past now. And God DAMN that feels good.

I cannot wait to go out downtown this weekend to celebrate. I've been holding this one in for months now. I am absolutely going to humpty dance all over downtown DC, so get ready.

Life is so, so, so good. And it's only going to get better. The one thing holding me back from being in the best shape of my life physically, mentally and emotionally is no longer an issue. My God I am going to tear shit UP now. Watch out for BG, my friends. Nothing can hold me back now.

Seriously, thank you to EVERYONE who has helped me through this. My family, friends and friends' families -- I couldn't have made it through one of the most trying times of my life without you. You were there to distract me, to offer an encouraging word (or a disparaging word, depending on the circumstance...lulz) and to listen to me vent more often than I can even count. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. And if you are in the area this weekend, you BEST come out to celebrate this with me. It will be soooo incredibly worth it.

Let's go, friends. LET US GO.

-BG