Job available-- but am I?

A job I may be quite qualified came open this week.  It pays substantially more and would involve more projects and public relations, and is at my current institution.  Should I apply knowing there's a chance that J might get a job soon?

But haven't I been asking myself that for the past three years?  I have held myself back in my current job by riding my hopes on another person.  And now that it (J's job) may actually happen soon, there's this job. That I would be silly not to go for.

But once again, I will have to bite my tongue and let another opportunity  pass away.  Who knows when J will get a job?   He will be graduating mid-May, but so far we have no bites.  I say "we", but it's starting to grate on me*.  I don't have anything to do with this.  I am completely at the whim of someone else's career.

It's not a good time to be angry, but I am.  I am my own person and I am good at my job, but I am losing myself in his job search.  Even at work, now that my boss knows he's graduating, it is assumed that we're leaving and I'm being treated differently.  I HAVE NO CONTROL OVER THIS. This would have been easier if he wasn't a student, and I wouldn't have had to tell anyone what was happening.  But with working with faculty... they were going to find out.  Now I'm awash in uncertainty not only in my own mind, but coming from those around me.

So, how can I apply for this job and still feel honest?  I don't want to not try, and then six months down the road J still doesn't have a job.  A month ago that thought wouldn't' have even crossed my mind, but who are we kidding?  The economy sucks and no one has contacted him about any of his applications.  It doesn't matter how talented/skilled/educated you are right now.  We could be looking at a long, dark haul.

Can anyone understand why trying to get a new job, especially in the same institution, would be a bad idea right now?  Even if I got it, if we had to move less than a year later, I would be leaving a bad reputation at a place I would have been remembered fondly, if only I hadn't wasted their time.  Plus, it's probably gotten around that J is graduating, so they won't even consider me.  Who would?  I wouldn't.

It's an endless fucking cycle of self-effacement, obnoxious martyrdom and failure.  Failure before I can even try.  I am just so tired of waiting.

*J isn't grating on me. He is wonderful and supportive and working really hard.

Snowed in with the one I love

Bonnie "Prince" Billy and the Cairo Gang's The Wondershow of the World* is the album I'll be listening to on repeat all day.  I don't usually post about music, because I have no way of explaining why I like a certain song to convince someone to listen to it, but this is one that always makes my heart feel tender.  The line, "Will you love me if I change?" makes me think of Simply Bored's comment in the guest post a few days ago: would we have done the things we say we'd have done if we hadn't made a decision to stick to someone else? What would we find out about ourselves, when we really ask, What would I have accomplished otherwise?  Would I be here, with J, if I'd done the things I convince myself I regret not doing?  Would he still love me, or even have found out he loved me, if I'd gone away and come back a year later.  Who will I be if I decide to start being more honest to myself about what I can achieve?  If I am as successful as my what ifs? will it lead me somewhere that I can't be with him anymore?


Did passing up a good opportunity get me where I am today, and can I admit that giving something up and gaining a wonderful relationship isn't as retrograde as rationality tells me?  Can I not be ashamed to honestly say, If I had gone for it, I would not be here?  Here, where I don't have a career, am not multi-lingual, not fiercely independent, defined somewhat by my relationship?  Where being someone's wife can't be chipped out from what I truly am?  Why is being a woman, in love with a man, caught up in so many feelings of guilt and looked upon with condescension? I can't change the world in that respect, but I can change the way I react to it.  It is so much harder to learn to ignore something, than to rail against it.


With Cornstalks or Among Them


Where were you again tonight? 
(with cornstalks or among them) 
Moonless night my love burned bright. 
(o out among them) 


I'm not impressed by fields of cane. 
Our house is good to me, and plain. 
Happiness can live here still, 
if coming back you only will. 


Or I can fnd you out among 
(o out among them) 
and sleep next to you and hear it sung 
(o out among them). 
I have saved enough that I can go. 
But where to find you, I don't know. 


Please to fnd me, here I am 
(with cornstalks or among them),
 devoured by fields unmade by man 
(o out among them). 
You love me still, although it's strange. 
Will you love me if I change? 


There was one life with you before, 
and one life more, and one life more. 




*Follow the link to all those songs on youtube. If you are similarly snowed in, please listen to some of these songs.  And then if you are really sad on account of it, see him and Zach Galifianakis's version of Can't Tell Me Nothin' by Kanye West.  But don't watch this video until you've listened to some of his music. It is amazing to listen to that beauty and then see that video and wonder, "Who the fuck is this person?"

Eff this anonymity noise. I'm Amy.

In one of my first posts, I wrote

"In a new place, my social contacts will, at first, be primarily people I meet through him.  I am sure these will be nice people.  ....Who will I be introduced to now?  I'll just need to introduce myself."

Who was I kidding? I can't imagine meeting people this way.   I've made a plan to go to a karaoke bar within one week of moving into town and sing something horribly dramatic and thus cement my new identity.  Then I will sign up for a book club at the library, chat up people in grocery store lines, and THEN I'll meet up with whoever is assigned to show me around.  People, I am not demur.

My name is Amy, I work in a library, and I live in Arkansas.  Margarita at Global Coach Center suggested I look at the pros and cons of my need for anonymity, and the more I thought about keeping something that has become so important to me from my spouse, I started to feel downright guilty!  I share every success with him, so it felt pretty weird not to tell him about my blog.

Tonight, after we got back from our Thanksgiving with his parents, and maybe after too many truthful discussions on the ride back, I told him I needed to tell him a secret.  He looked a little frightened, but let out a sigh when I told him I had an anonymous blog where I kvetched about work problems and tried to sort though my issues with moving.  I asked him, "Haven't you noticed me being secretive about my internet activities?" and he said he just thought I was writing emails.  Such a trusting spouse! Good thing he's a physicist and not a detective.

I told him I'm going to go back through my posts and make sure I didn't say anything I'd regret.  Though I try to make this a constructive space, I have had some bad days.  He says he doesn't have to know the name of my blog, and he won't read it if I don't want him to.  That kind of attitude and trust makes me feel comfortable letting him.  I really am so, so lucky.

Some details may have to be edited to protect my husband's job prospects, but I'm looking forward sharing some more specific details than I have in the past.  I can finally post pictures of the awesome costumes we made at Halloween, and I won't have to worry about "getting found out". It really was kind of self-centered to think that in the entire internet, without actually knowing I was writing, he would stumble upon this and say, "What the heck??"

So, thanks to everyone who is reading and commenting, and I hope the addition of more specific details about my life will be helpful and not obnoxious.

Holiday!

I have to work tomorrow, but the boss won't be there, so I'll be working.  No, seriously, I will be able to get  some good work done without lots of people and hostility to distract me.  And some friends have promised to come by and be silly.

We just had drinks and holiday snacks with friends at a bar, and I'm nicely lubed for the fall break.  I'm slugging water right now in an attempt to not be damaged for work tomorrow.  I can hear my husband in the back yard playing with the dogs and finalizing food plans on the phone with his mom.  It's not too cold here, we got a little tiny (real) Christmas tree, and things seem really good.  I'm gonna finish this water and pack a little bag for our trip.  I am genuinely happy.

Foot in Mouth Disease

[Rant warning-- sometimes these things need to come out]


You don't have time? Then why are you hanging out with me?  File this under graduate student marital difficulties.  Maybe I'm over-reacting, but when we're out having a good time, don't start jawing about how you should have come home sooner on the car ride back.  It makes me feel like 1) you didn't want to go in the first place (remember it was your idea, though), 2) I'm the reason you're not getting enough work done, 3) you don't have the gumption to speak up for your own time line and feel it's easier to make it seem like my fault.

It isn't.

I was under the impression that I was making a lot of choices that benefit my spouse and his future career, and that he could figure his own schedule out.  If he doesn't have time to go out, a date, come home for dinner, go grocery shopping, he should say something before instead of after the fact.  It's even worse when we were having a really good time out, and that retro-actively ruins it all. I have been planning my life around this person and he won't take responsibility for his daily schedule? Really?

This is something that has happened before.  Maybe you've gotten this impression from my blog, but I don't keep things bottled up and speak up if someone is doing me wrong.  I don't let things explode.  Since we've had this discussion before, I wish he would just realize that responding to me in a hurt voice when I'm speaking my mind at a normal inside-voice level makes me feel like some kind of monster. A monster who is working a job she hates and has her life pretty much on hold so he can pursue his dreams.  I am so scary!

I'd rather he just spend much less time with me, and save up the time he REALLY has to spend doing it in earnest, not worrying the whole time how he's going to catch up. Because that doesn't really count as being there.  Even worse, after these fights* he has to hang around the house until he feels like things are better between us, which makes me insane because the argument started because he needed to get to work. GET OUT OF THE HOUSE THEN.  I know he doesn't want to leave with bad feelings between us, but it makes me nuts!

So, I hope he gets a lot accomplished today, because my Sunday is ruined.

*Luckily, and I realize how lucky I am every day, these are the only things we fight about,  other than some tiffs over cleaning.  He has never raised his voice at me.  Once he looked angry at me, and that made me so sad.

Floating in space

I wrote a pretty harsh post about the husband's job search, and for some reason forgot to post.  I just got a really sweet email from him, apropos of nothing. It made me remember the hate-rant, and thank god I didn't publish it.  I know this thing is anonymous, but it still would have been wrong.  He really does love me as hard as a person can.  And likewise.

Current Status: OK

I started a sewing class on Monday, so I am officially on my way to learning a skill that will make me useful and perhaps someday be a job/creativity outlet.  And since tailors exist everywhere, I can easily carry this on my back to Whereverland.

The spouse seems pretty happy right now, and not as stressed.  Getting that application in definitely gave him some renewed confidence.  He gets down this time of year because his advisor goes on a long vacation, and he often feels like he can't move forward as fast as he'd like. 

On the depression/anxiety front, I've decided to increase my dosage (doc says it's alright). This is good, since I hurt my knee and can't go running.  I don't know how long that will last, but after only a few days my body issues (which are rare) have come back.  I don't think about that stuff when I can go out a few times a week and run around.  But I feel really even, and I asked the spouse if he'd noticed any change in my temperment, and said I'd been really even.  Maybe it's the medication, or maybe it's my attempts at productivity/meaning.  I'm not going to test either one, but just be happy about it.

A friend is taking the GRE in 6 weeks, and I've decided to join her for that.  I don't have any plans for grad school currently, but it would be a good thing to get out of the way, and an accomplishment that could help my self-esteem.

Being selfish is helping me.  I'm filling my space and trying not to say "I'm sorry" so much.

Don't be afraid to ask questions

Fear of asking questions/fear of knowing the answer is probably my biggest fault, but it's a victimless crime.  If you don't ask, no one can say no-- this cowardly philosophy has been at the center of some of the worst stories in my life.  I get upset sometimes when I see how many years I've put my life on hold for my spouse, like it was some great secret that a PhD is a drawn-out process.  I never would just straight-out ask, "How many years do you think this will take?" "Have you actually applied for any jobs yet?"

Sometimes I'm afraid to ask a question because someone may have already told me the answer, but I've forgotten.

But today, after fruitless searching for blogs to reassure or guide me, I was still finding nada.  It's still all academic couples and moms.  No offense to either group, but that's not the voice I need-- at least not right now.  I started following a few blogs that are written by post-doc scientists, mostly women, to see if I could glean anything from that perspective.  For science, feminism, and ladies round-about my age who are kicking ass in real careers, and role models, this list has been great:

Academic Jungle
The Adventures of Notorious PhD, Girl Scholar
Canadian GirlPostdoc in America
Female Science Professor
Liberal Arts  Lady
The Two Body Problem

I emailed the Notorious PhD and asked a question: have you heard of anyone out there like me, and do they have a blog?  I felt a little forward doing that, but it's not like I was going to run into her at a party and be embarrassed.  Later in the day, I saw a new post from that blog show up in my RSS, and it was my letter!

Notorious herself didn't have any ideas, but she posed the question for her readers, and there was a good response.  People wanted to know where my blog was!  I got my question answered, and I won't lie and say I wasn't excited that someone besides me could be reading my posts.

I haven't had a chance yet to look through the suggestions, but I'll post about them once I do.  This was a good day.  One said that maybe I couldn't find the right stuff because I wasn't technically a trailing spouse yet.  (An issue of not having the right vocabulary-- or maybe it doesn't exist?)

p.s. A well-known librarian, who I work with, let me know he would give me his full support if I wanted to go to library school, and he would write me a rec letter.  That made me feel genuinely good, and I tried to take the comment without effacing myself.  I just wish that people believing in me equalled me believing in myself.  I'm getting there.

Internet Anonymity? Well, hi Internet.

I haven't written a blog in a long time, and it's been quite a while since I seriously felt important enough for some free bandwidth. I'd like to hope I'm anonymous, as some of the things I'd like to talk about on this blog might hurt some people's feelings.

It does feel good to do this.

I am 27, and I hold a bachelor degree in a liberal art. It is somewhat worthless, but I have a job that pays well and doesn't put me in danger. On a day like today, I really should be so thankful for the air conditioning. I got married some years ago, and my spouse is in grad school. Ze(I'll attempt to stay gender-neutral*) are very close to finishing up a PhD and already looking for jobs. This blog is about being the one without a career path yet, married to one on zes way.

For the past few years, I've been in a limbo waiting to see if I'd be here for a while, or moving on. This limbo has caused me to make excuses about not doing things that will take a commitment and feeling resentment against my spouse. I knew what I was getting into when I said I'd follow zem everywhere. But I didn't. This was my first real relationship, one that lasted longer than the initial flares of passion and went into truly getting to know someone territory. But this wasn't a lesson that could be learned by thinking really hard about it. The reality has been hard on me.

When we got married, I was under the impression that ze was almost done. We told our relatives (somewhat jokingly) about moving to another country. My biggest problem in life has always been my fear of asking questions. The questions that would get me where I need to go and let me know where I stand. I guess I never straight-out asked how long this could take, and so I lived for years thinking "I'll be gone in 6 months". I packed boxes every once in a while. I sold boxes of books. I quit a non-work activity because I thought I couldn't commit for the term necessary. I put off looking for a better job, even though the one I had was killing me. For a while I even shied away from making new friends, thinking it wasn't worth the effort.

It wasn't until last year that my facade of faithful sidekick crumbled and I told zem all about how unhappy I was with not knowing. Ze wasn't happy about it either, and my telling zem didn't help. I knew it was my right to talk about my feelings, but I felt horrible that I'd put more pressure on zem than ze already had. (This is my first time writing with these pronouns, and I feel clunky, but I feel it's for the greater good). I had and have a right to be happy and a right to be unhappy. Playing the part of a loyal and uncomplaining spouse was a great way to go crazy. Believe me, I went a little crazy.

Advice for the "trailing" spouse (though this usually refers to a two-career household) is usually not to complain, though this is usually only directed at women. There's some truth to that, but it's only to not complain all the damn time. If you've told zem you're unhappy and why, and try to fix it or ask them to help you fix it, that is totally ok. But if you're letting zem know at every turn that they need to pick up the speed and get done already, that may be edging into some non-productive territory.

So, here I am, at a middling job, with a bachelor's degree in uselessness, married to a wonderful person who really is trying as hard as ze can.

It is a job. And I am thankful for that.

And my degree, while seemingly useless, is a stepping stone and helped me get said job.

And my spouse is my favorite person in the world.

And if I try to write down everything I've thought about for the past three years, this will be a terrible blob of a post and no one will reach the end of it before they perish.

I hope this can be a resource or a voice in the dark for other people, married or not, who need an outlet for the fear and helplessness that this situation can make you feel. I learned that it's totally ok to feel this way, but it's not ok to keep it all inside. If you can talk about it, you can figure a way out. I'm stilling digging myself out of this pit, but I could use some company.

*For a good guide to this, if you care: http://santiago.mapache.org/nonfiction/essays/zie.html

[UPDATE 1-8-11] Lots of you are coming here reading this post, but rest assured this was the first one and I've come a long way, including dropping the badly-done gender-neutral pronouns.  Thanks to Drug Monkey for the good press.