Status Report

Last night as we were getting ready for bed, J asked me if I had my druthers, would I want to stay here or move.  That's not an easy answer.  From the start of our marriage (and even before) the plan was he'd get his PhD, and we'd travel on his career path together (since I hadn't figured one out yet). So, as he started to get finished up, I started to disconnect myself from my town.  I did not renew my membership on a non-profit board that could probably have used me there, because I didn't want to drop out halfway through the year.  I stopped work on a craft fair I had been wanting to organize.  I refused a nomination to the staff senate at the university where I worked.  Twice.  At one point, even after I realized the poor treatment at my work was not going to change no matter how proactive I became, I refused to find another job that I would just have to quit soon after. At many points in here, I gave up hope.  I packed things up.  I sold 1/3 of my belongings.  I decided not to plant the garden this year.  I have been protesting any large Christmas gifts for YEARS because I didn't want to move with them.  God knows we could have used a new couch a long time ago. I hit pause.

But you can't hit pause on life. It keeps going, things accumulate, experience accumulates until it totally makes sense to go for that better-paying job even if the future is murky.  Submit some artwork to that show*.  Make some new friends and stop acting like they'll just be saying goodbye to you soon.

So, do I want to stay?  If I hadn't spent the last four years preparing to leave, yes. Of course. I'd made good friends, good connections, I love my house.  But I feel like I've spent four years refusing to grow and soiling my reputation with a flaky assertion that I'd be "leaving soon".  That feels really bad.  I have a hang-up about looking like a flake, but I think that's because it's what I'm known for by now.  I'm the one who's always saying she's moving but hasn't gone anywhere.

I shouldn't care what people think.  But I do care about all the wasted time and the negative parts of my reputation caused by it.  I want a fresh start.

That puts a lot of pressure on J.  I know there was always pressure, but I think it's part of the bargain when he's the one leading the charge.  I've got a different kind of pressure, one that isn't as valued or supported, as evidenced by the lack of blogs about trailing/traveling spouses.

I shouldn't be writing this blog-- I should be polishing my resume and writing a cover letter.  I have always been my worst enemy**.


*Somewhat hilariously (not at all) put on by the non-profit I had worked with and resigned from.  But I just got an email saying I'd gotten in but they didn't have a venue, so there wouldn't be a show.  Great.
**I'm not actually having a bad day.  It's just a real thinky day.

Me and the DMV: A taste of what's to come

Today is a university holiday, so I have it off.  I've spent today buying replacement lightbulbs and paying bills, sitting at the DMV trying to smile in order to make myself feel happier.  But it is just not working.  I keep looking at this dreary day and hoping that's not what's making me feel so low.  If it is, Seattle may not be so great for me.  I never noticed how often the sky was just pure, cloudless blue until I started reading about the weather in the Pacific Northwest.  I understand why they have vampires.

J has a short phone interview today with a Google representative.  It is not the big scary one, but it's his first phone interview for a job.  I have promised to be out of the house.  I am feeling his nervousness.  Afterwards I am taking him out for a meal.  I have yet to eat more than a small bowl of oatmeal today.

When I am sad or confused, I can't eat.  I forget how to make food or just get really bogged down in making decisions. I am currently staring at some frozen samosas that I do not want to unfreeze or eat.  A friend tells me I am disassociating from my current situation because it is too much.  I don't want to believe that, because this is just a taste of all the change and stress we'll go through.  All this time hoping and  complaining about moving on, and I freak out the second we start to go forward.  I've  cancelled plans with friends twice and backed out of a creative project just in the past day.  I'll admit I felt a lot better afterwards, but I really hate to disappoint people.

The highlight of my day will be starting a project for a commissioned Halloween hat.  My patron (who purchased my cherry hat previously and wants to collect more of my work ;)) pretty much let me decide what it would be, and I chose a barrel cactus.  I took a stack of newspapers from the DMV and will start making the form today.

Now, I really should eat before I decide to take a nap and waste the day.

The scale of opportunity

More blog-searching today (and somehow this is a productive day at work) and I found a "trailing spouse" blog, albeit an expat* one.  She doesn't like the term trailing spouse either**, but her blog is endlessly positive:

As a trailing spouse, identity can be a tough thing (because if you're like me, that last thing you want to be called is a "trailing spouse"). But if the career you had before isn't going to work out abroad (or you lose yours via a layoff like me), maybe there's something else you'd love to do and try. Maybe, in fact, this is your big opportunity for that something you used to put on hold. 

Chantal at One Big Yodel 

I don't want my opportunity, a positive thing, tinged with the fact that I only have it because it's the consolation prize for having no control***.  Here's my internalized misogyny (it's just popping up way too much this week) again, in that I can't see my worth if I didn't come to it myself, as if taking that opportunity is just backsliding into a dependent female role. I don't, however, feel this way when it comes to education.  If J was working and I was going back to school or taking classes in whatever field I settle on, that feels ok. But if it's to start an Etsy or make Halloween costumes (traditionally female pursuits) it's not.  See what I did there?  Thanks world.  You've made me a woman-hater.

How do I cleanse my mind of these tendencies?  I feel fucked all-around.  And I haven't even touched upon the stink of privilege in all this.

*I'm more interested in domestic relocation.
**Yeah, I changed my title again, because no one's going to find this blog otherwise.
***I'm speaking for myself, not Chantal.  She has her shit together.

Traveling Spouse blog lacking spousey or travely business

If the blog has been scattered, please forgive.  Right now, nothing bad and nothing great is going on.  J was given some great advice about industry jobs that made him really happy, and he's hard at work on his dissertation. PhD Comics are less depressing and more funny now.  SCOATS abides.

I don't know where my privacy line is right now.  I love writing here and it makes me feel better, but I also don't want to turn into an emotional-vomit blog, or say things to embarrass myself/J.  Telling him about the blog made me feel WAY better, because I was getting proud of it and wanted to share my happiness with him.  But now I've lost a little bit of that bitching edge and have become too un-anonymous to talk about more details without incriminating J.  No more talk about bosses or advisors, and sadly that could be really interesting.  Actually, it IS really interesting, but I'm playing it safe.

I will end this meaningless sorry I haven't been writing post.  Here's a shout-out to my favorite How to be an Adult blog, Adult Concerns.

It's just a shoe.