“My priorities were f***ed”
Happy New Year! My goal this year is to be here now…
… because I have to admit, I honestly don’t remember a lot of 2021.
My mind has blacked out the specifics of at least the first eight months. I remember overall thoughts and feelings but that’s about it. What I do remember is that all of those coping skills I learned in grad school about being present and only being able to control today went out of the window.
I was so consumed with anxiety about what was coming next — specifically, from where was I going to get healthcare and where was I going to live — that I spent most of my therapy sessions and conversations with friends and family talking about my job and impending unemployment. I don’t mean to be flippant about being unemployed and lacking health care. Far from it. My work wrestles with these very questions and my thoughts about the state of work, healthcare, and so on are much too vast for our time here together. I digress, but what a crappy way to spend precious time with loved ones.
And it was precious time with loved ones that made me see the light. My sister-in-law put it so eloquently when she described how our “priorities are f***ed” when we prioritize work above everything, chasing the next shiny accolade and constantly hustling for tomorrow.
I came to Seattle to see my family for spring break right as the world ground to a halt. While the pandemic raged on and upended everyone’s lives, I grew to appreciate the quality time I had with my family and the chance to be a part of their kiddo’s life in a sustained way. My family dinners were a refuge from pandemic and academic job market anxiety, and they quickly became a part of how I recharged and found moments of joy in a draining and depressing time.
Taking care of the kiddo instead of working some days, I slowly began realizing that there is more to life than moving around to places far away from your people. There’s more to life than being told that you’re so special and smart (their words, not mine) while being apologized to for the atrocious state of the academic job market. There’s more to life than freaking out about publishing an article that a few hundred people might read in your lifetime. And there is certainly more to life than feeling worthless, unvalued, and unsuccessful because you can’t get stable (not even permanent!), life-sustaining, fulfilling employment in academia in a place that you want to live.
The pandemic has wreaked havoc on all of our lives, and brought sickness and death into all of our homes. Perhaps I’m about to get morbid, but the pandemic has also brought me perspective and a reality check: if I were to die tomorrow, would I be happy with the way that I’ve lived life so far? In a different way, I asked myself: on my deathbed, what are my loved ones going to remember about me? My articles, sacrifice for a fancy professorship, or my teaching evals? Definitely not. They will remember that I came over for dinner a couple of times a week and taught the kiddos about water vapor and hierarchies; that I was their most ardent auntie cheerleader in the stands; that I hung out with them at the park and ran around til we fell into a heap.
So, along with trusting my gut, I dared to assess what I wanted my life to look like. My life goals at 25 of being an academic superstar are very different to now, 10 years later. For all of you non-academics reading this, imagining what you want from life is a hard thing to do when there are too few jobs in the academe for the number of PhDs and you know you might have to live somewhere incompatible with your life. It’s well-known that a good tenure track job in a place you (and your family) can tolerate is a unicorn and completely down to so many brands of luck.
Anyway, back to what I wanted my life to look like. As potential job opportunities cropped up, I tried to imagine myself back in the Twin Cities (Minnesota), or in New York City or St. Louis. No shade to any of these cities but each of these opportunities were for a year. I knew I would have to move within 12 months. I felt heaviness in my heart and a hardcore eye-roll thinking about another year on the job market, having to put down roots again, only to rip them back out less than a year later.
These potential opportunities forced the question: what do I want from life? First and foremost, I wanted stability in my work and where I lived. I wanted a fulfilling job that has social impact because I know work is important to me. And I was also tired of being broke and isolated. I wanted to live comfortably and not have to count every penny. I wanted to be compensated for the experience and expertise I bring to the table. After living in a town of 13,000 people, I can confirm I am a city person. I love being active outside. I wanted to live somewhere where I could choose to see snow. I wanted to be a part of the kiddos in my life, not wasting my life in airports flying across the country every break I got to be with them.
So I chose what I wanted for once. Not that I didn’t choose all of these academic jobs but I realized I was always choosing the spectre of an academic career over my life now that includes my career and my life. Without realizing it, I was putting off “starting” my life. When I was at the crossroads of a fancy one-year postdoc and non-academic job, I asked myself what was really important to me? And it was spending time with loved ones and building a life for myself, not always chasing one that was never going to come.
So let’s get our priorities in line, and here’s to remembering more of 2022 and spending time with loved ones.
