How do I survive a year or two in a small town after years in the city?

I've gotten two job opportunities in this slightly larger city, but the prospect of commuting every day is scary and even maybe impossible, due to my shaky driving skills. Can you rent a room in a house in the slightly larger city 20 minutes from your family and walk/ride to work? Then you could do the reverse commute once or twice a week for family things like meals or the occasional weekend.

Life is short. Why continue living where your are not happy and you cannot find a job? Paying off loans is an admirable goal, but many of us took a few years to do it. It's fine. Contact some of your friends from college and couch surf until you find a job in a city. Cities have the type of transportation services you need to make it to work consistently. I know it's risky and there's no reason you need to tell your folks that you're making some big change. You position it as "I'm going to visit a friend for a few weeks". While you're there you find a job - any job to get money flowing in.

I don't understand. Why are you home? You have job leads/opportunities in Duluth. You can't commute there. You should live there. You had a job and have friends in Chicago or wherever it was. You should live there, even more so. You need to live your life in a way that doesn't make you a miserable stressball.

You say that your loans are small, but they're also apparently a reason you've moved away from the city and life that you enjoyed to a small town and life that you hate--is it at all feasible to just scrap the "spend a year paying off my loans plan" and push ahead with your plan to live where you want to live?

You survive by getting out. Borrow money and get out. You might be unhappy borrowing money, but you will be far, far unhappier unemployed and living at home. I made a mistake coming back to Canada after spending a year and a half in Japan just after I graduated from university. I came back to my small home town, which was in the midst of a recession, and was stuck - I had used all my money to get there, and the only jobs I could find were working in kitchens. I spent about 8 months at home, borrowed some money, and went back to Japan, where I easily made the money to pay off the loan. I don't think it will be easy to pay off a loan, but if you can swing it, get out as soon as you can.

Are you financially capable, either through your own means or parent help, to get to the big city for interviews if necessary? One trick a lot of people use with resumes is to list their address as one in the city they're applying to -- usually a friend's. I moved back home (also a small Midwestern town) for a brief period and did this, appearing to live in Chicago or New York or wherever the job I was applying to was located. Employers tend to take you more seriously if they see you already live in the city. If it comes up and you feel uncomfortable, you can always say something like "I'm in the process of moving." This allows you to sit pretty in the small town and churn out applications while appearing to be right around the corner. It works especially well if you can get to the big city in question by train for interviews -- my Amtrak tickets averaged $30-50. In the meantime, I spat out applications like it was my job (ha). I understand getting stir-crazy after doing the big city/small town leap back. Something I've noticed over the years, though, going back and forth again and again (I live and work in the big city now), is that the small town really has some charms the big city lacks. They're safe, they're mellow, they're cheap, they've got a wondrous abundance of nature that the city can't shake a stick at. Experiment and see if you can't appreciate the place you're at, knowing that it's temporary for you (that's sort of the key that lets you do it, IMO). Apply like a maniac each day, but then go for walks in the forest, sit on the roof and look at the stars, swim in the nearly empty, sun-warmed lake. This will have the dual benefit of giving you some space from your parents and maybe helping out with the anxiety. Oh, and read a ton of books!

I think you should scrape up enough money to move back to the bigger city--you'll have more chances to make money there than at home. If you can find a group house, live really frugally, you have a better chance of making more money than in a small town.

Take a little longer on your loan and move to duluth or where ever you are thinking! Loneliness and frustraition multiplies as time goes on. For now, find places to hang out where there are people near your age, even if they aren't your speed. Finding some people to car share with to the bigger city may be worth the trouble.

http://ask.metafilter.com/221254/How-do-I-survive-a-year-or-two-in-a-small-town-after-years-in-the-city#3197775: "In the meantime, are there not people your age in your small town to befriend or places you can volunteer at to keep you occupied and opportunities to network a bit?" I was in the OP's situation for the past two years living in a town with less than 1000 residents. There were people my age, but there was nothing in common. I like Boards of Canada, they like Toby Keith. I want to be a language professor, they have 3 kids already and think a really fun time is parking their truck in the road and burning their tires. The OP needs to get out, and fast. Staying for any longer than necessary is incredibly depressing. For more info on the TEFL front, A basic start would be the http://www.tefl.com/jobs/ but the man you really, really want to talk to is Mefi's own http://www.metafilter.com/user/17588, but he's on hiatus right now so you might want to send him an actual email. You might not really want to be teaching English forever, but I think for right now, it's the most fulfilling gig out there for overqualified humanities majors like you or me.