On moving on

I feel today like life in the globe (the place/town that I work) has become somewhat unbearable. There's too much tension among friends, boyfriend and family that I feel like my head is going to explode and I walk around in a constant state of pressure -- like I'm walking on eggshells and trying to keep everyone happy. Sadly, I can no longer keep everyone -- or anyone happy. I feel like my life is a huge, unfixable mess, and the only solution that I can come up with is to get as far away from it all as possible. Because, unfortunately, that is still the primary way that I like to solve problems -- by running away from them. It is odd that after only about a year and a half in this corner of the universe, I feel like I've made a sufficient mess of my relationships with everyone I know here that there is nothing left for me to do except leave it all behind.

And, by leaving it behind I mean moving away -- nothing too drastic, but I decided today to go on a job interview in Idaho. I went back and forth over what to do about the whole Idaho issue. At first, when the publisher of the newspaper called me up out of the blue and asked if I would be interested in going to Idaho, I laughed, thinking, "There's no way in hell." But I decided to hear him out anyway, primarily because it was a big ego trip to have the publisher of a newspaper that is much bigger than the one I currently work at calling me on the phone and trying to talk me into coming and working for him.

I told him I would think about it -- but I was still thinking, "yeah right, I'm not moving to Idaho." I have too many connections to the Midwest, especially the Iowa/Minnesota/South Dakota area, and I wouldn't want to leave them all behind. But something has changed over the past couple of days, and I'm starting to wonder if that would really be such a bad thing.

It all started with a big brouhaha over my birthday, which is coming up on Friday. One of my friends decided to plan a party for me, but then said in no uncertain terms that my boyfriend is not allowed to come (not that he would probably want to come anyway, because he hates her and she hates him). But, that puts me in an awkward position of having to choose what I'm going to do -- and either way, someone is going to be pissed off. Basically, it's going to be the worst birthday of my life, no matter what. There will be drama, there will be angry words, bitterness and hurt feelings, and I'll be the one caught in the middle of it all.

There's more to it than that -- and it would take me all day to put the full story into words, but all I can say is that I've had enough. Everyone is accusing everyone else of being controlling, and I'm caught in the middle, trying to sort out all the crap and wondering why I am even associating with these people, who all say that they just "want what's best for me."

What do I really want to do for my birthday? I want to crawl into a hole in the wall and stay there without talking to anybody until the shitstorm blows over on Sept. 17. In the meantime, I'm lining up a job interview in Pocatello, Idaho.