Year 5/6 feels like the slow, clinking incline at the beginning of a rollercoaster ride. I know year 6 will have its own aching doom, but, year 5? Suddenly I am not just a wee babe. I’m getting ready to leap into a cesspool of terror. Lucky me!
I wish I was more bubbly about this. But, truthfully, the anxious appreciation for being “somewhere” in life after you’ve come from scrappy beginnings only goes so far. And yes, I am grateful. I am almost always in awe of how my life turned out. The people, the memories I have and will make in the future? It’s wild! It’s everything I worked so hard for. So why am I feeling melancholic?
Well, for starters, I confronted a truth in therapy last week: I’m approaching the final jumping off point of “school.” After more than 20 years in school I will be exiting stage left. So much of my identity and sense of self has been wrapped around being a student. My worth has depended on it. My purpose has been outlined by it. Now, this fixture of my life is decidedly less sturdy. Who will I be without school? What will I do when I am not juggling papers, teaching, exams?
I resonate with others’ perspectives on school feeling like the anchor that holds you in place while the rest of your peers move on to new life stages. People get married, buy houses, open retirement accounts, have babies, invest in crypto (lol). Meanwhile I am still living gilded paycheck-to-paycheck with a truly pathetic attempt at a savings/retirement nest egg. I rent a small apartment that takes up nearly half my monthly salary. I will cry when I no longer qualify for student health insurance. What a true saving grace. And when I don’t get student discounts?! What the hell is there to live for?
Don’t even get me started on how all this is compounded by being in a humanities field.
One positive thing has arisen from this existential crisis, and that is my renewed resolve to live the kind of life I want, one I choose. I sat down and contemplated all that has been lined up for me. Do I want to go on the market? Is an academic job really what I desire? Are my ambitions in alignment with that, or am I just caving to something both inevitable and scary?
For a minute there, I was of the mind that, actually, I need a real pivot.
Over the holiday break I outlined my needs, wants, and desires. I meditated on what I was willing to accept and what I wasn’t. I made hypothetical forks in the road. I prayed to the universe. I tackled some hard questions with my therapist. Questions like “what if I decide once and for all that I am enough, that I have done enough, that I no longer have to prove myself to anyone, including myself?” Let me tell you, even just recounting that is a soft gut punch.
Flash-forward to a couple of weeks ago when I sat down for a meeting with my advisor to chart out the next 6 months. One of the things I like most about my advisor is she stops herself from making complacent assumptions. She asks what I want, what I see for myself. She doesn’t assume that of COURSE I am going on the market in the fall! Why wouldn’t I? No. She asks. She considers. So when she asked if going on the market was what I wanted, I smiled nervously.
I said “Yes, but—” and felt the paradigm shift.
I told her that while I know the job market is uncertain, I don’t want to just throw myself into a job that doesn’t align with my values because I feel scared that I won’t get another opportunity. There are things I want to happen on my terms, and not anyone else’s. I strongly prefer finding a post-doc position rather than faculty or tenure-track. That way, I get a rigorous experience and also time to breathe after finishing 6 years of doctoral study. Once the dust settles and I get some distance away from grad school, I can better ascertain my long-term decisions.
Now, of course, this all assumes I will find a suitable post-doc and get accepted. I know that is not promised. In fact, I am learning to embrace it. If I don’t get an opportunity to work in the academy — an opportunity that I choose, not one that I cling to for stability — then that’s the universe saying “not now.” My life doesn’t stop or start on the whim of academe. I am still a person, a friend, a sister, a daughter, a believer in transformational justice. I will find work that corresponds to my hard-earned skills. I still have many lessons to learn.
I know this may seem a bit anticlimactic; the first part may have made it seem like I was gearing up for a “I’m leaving the whole thing” confession. But I would also like to say that this is leaps and bounds from where my head/heart was at the start of graduate school. To suggest that I disentangle myself from school, that I see my academic work as just one dimension to my bigger, fuller self? What a crisis. And I can’t promise that I am not currently feeling a crisis now. I worry that maintaining the current path, albeit on much different terms, will fold me back into that reductive mentality.
But that’s the thing, right? Resisting being consumed fully by the systems and institutions you exist within is a life-long conflict. So long as I am situated as a citizen of the so-called United States, I cannot live outside that culture. But I can challenge its impunity. I can bring it into perspective with all of its shortcomings, seductions, and falsehoods.
I have proved myself capable of tremendous acts, of great, great courage. I have forged my own path. Everything I have set my mind to, with few exceptions, I have reached. I have approached life with an open heart. I deserve faith, forgiveness, and celebration.
What’s more: I am more than my intellectual production. I am more than my capacity to labor. And so are you. The higher-education-industrial-complex needs you more than you need it. You have to choose yourself and your principles. Do not give in. If you swear, I swear.
Sending love to you all.
Free Palestine. End apartheid. Down with imperialism.
as a current undergrad aspiring to have a career in academia (i’m also in the humanities lol), this newsletter has such a special place in my heart. it’s wonderful to be able to watch you go through grad school and learn from the thoughts and experiences you share with us. congrats on being almost done, and i wish you the best of luck in the future!!