Joblessness

Apologies if you came here for cute baby pictures or an update on Baby G. I have something else on my mind at the moment, and I need to get it out there.

We got home from the NICU with Genevieve on a Thursday. The following Monday, I lost my job. Or, to be more specific, I found out that I will lose my job a year from now.

The campus where I teach is closing its undergraduate program next year. Full stop. All faculty jobs over (this university did away with the tenure system years and years ago and all faculty are on annual contracts).

We have the opportunity to apply for jobs at the other, larger campus. (Spoiler: The likelihood of them hiring an English professor is slim to none.) We are being given an incentive in the form of a severance package if we stay on through May of 2020.

After that... who knows?

I got this in an e-mail because I was at home with a newborn. I texted my friends who were on campus because I couldn't believe it. They were told at a meeting. They couldn't believe it either. I cried a lot.

I love my job. I feel like I was meant to be an English professor. Talking about literature with a captive audience where I'm in charge of the discussion is a dream come true for me! Sure, grading papers is the worst, but I love the autonomy and freedom of my job, the mix of people-time and alone-time, and my office on campus. I love the students--especially the English majors--and I really like my colleagues--especially the English department, where there's just three of us and we call ourselves the Best Friends Club.

It's a huge loss for me.

A few weeks after Eliza died, I was encouraged to apply for this job and I said no. I couldn't do it. I didn't have the energy or the wherewithal to make it happen. Several weeks later, they reached out again, and this time I did it. I put together the materials and I put on a game face for the interviews. And I got the job.

It was a huge thing for me, to have something that made me feel capable and professional and like someone besides a mom whose baby died. It literally gave me a reason to get out of bed in the morning. And after a while, I started to get good at it. I felt good about it. I love thinking about complicated ideas with my students--post-colonialism, unreliable narrators, literary criticism. I love unpacking lines of poetry with students and seeing them have a light-bulb moment of understanding. I love working hard for two semesters and then having summers at home with my kids.

It's not an easy job, and there are weeks I work more than 40 hours between grading and prepping and responding to e-mails and committee work. But it feels meaningful. I feel like my work has a purpose AND I enjoy it.

And now it's gone.

Or it will be gone. It's so odd to mourn it a year in advance, but it's impossible not to mourn now that I know.

It gives me a feeling of failure even though I obviously have no control over the closure of the campus. I hadn't realized how much of my identity was wrapped up in being able to tell people, "I'm an English professor" or "I teach literature at the university." It's embarrassing to say that I've lost my job, even if it's through no fault of my own, and even when people are totally cool and sympathetic.

I spent seven years in graduate school, struggling with being a small fish in a big pond, with being unprepared for the rigors of graduate school, with feeling like an imposter, with stressing out so much about each step in the process. And then I finished my PhD and I got a job in a difficult market and I was able to stay in the city where we wanted to live and it finally felt like in a world where so many of the most important things (like, for example, whether your baby lives or dies) can be completely out of your control, this was something I could control and this was something that worked out in my favor. I got super lucky, yes, but I also worked super hard to make it happen.

And now I'm trying to imagine what life looks like after next May... and I have no idea.

The chances of me landing another job as an English professor at another university are quite unlikely. Openings are few and far between, especially if we are unwilling to relocate (we have no desire to relocate at this point). I'm also not particularly marketable, as my teaching institution emphasized teaching (heavy course load) and service (lots of committee work) rather than research and publishing, and I haven't attended many conferences since having kids, so I'm not sure I'd even get another job anywhere. The market is vicious and I'm sure there are fresh PhDs who have a better publishing record than I do at this point.

It's more likely I could get a job doing something like working at a writing center... but I'm more interested in teaching and pedagogy than I am in tutoring students in writing.

My old boss at the Kumon center will want me to buy his Kumon center so he can retire, but Kumon is sales and customer service and that's just not where I want to put my energy.

David suggested I get certified to teach high school... or teach at a private high school... neither of those ideas is particularly appealing to me, except for the academic schedule.

I might look into a job focused on writing--it would be like technical writing or copy writing... but maybe something I could do from home?

The other thing is that I need a job that really makes it worthwhile for me to work. Otherwise, by the time we pay for before/after school care and baby G's daycare, it might not be financially worth it for me to work at all. But I never imagined myself staying home full time. Sometimes I think it could be great--I could do the kind of writing I want to do and get this time with my last baby. Other times, all I can think about is how stressful the budgeting will be, and how unfulfilling and lonely it might be. Do I want to try to work from home? I don't exactly know what that would look like either.

So that is what is weighing on me most lately. I don't want it to be a cloud over this time with Genevieve, so I've mostly tried to push it to the side of my mind. Our pediatrician was asking me about it yesterday and I was telling her how weird it is to lose my job a year in advance... like I WANT to problem solve now and figure out next steps and job search and all of that, but I'm ahead of schedule and it makes the most sense financially and for my sanity to stay there through this year. She also pointed out that summer at home with two big kids and a newborn is probably not the time that I need to be focused on figuring all of this out.

I know she's right, but I hate the uncertainty. I hate not knowing. I hate feeling like my PhD and the years I've spent teaching have been a waste and that I'm a failure. (I know this isn't logical, but it's where my mind goes at 3am when I'm feeding the baby in a dark house and thinking about what comes next...) I worry about our retirement savings and what happens to our plans to pay off our mortgage and save for college when we're suddenly down to one income with three kids. I know we're actually quite fortunate, but it still feels difficult and scary not knowing what comes next. I cried for a while because I felt like I was losing summers at home with my kids and I'm so unwilling to give that up. Does that sound bratty of me? It's just that it was truly the biggest perk of my job outside of the job itself. But I'm not sure what options I'm left with if I'm not looking for a 12-month gig.

I'd love to hear from people who have made big career transitions, or who write and work from home, or who want to hire me to teach literature to college students (ha).

I'm trying to be optimistic, but I'm quite skeptical of windows opening when doors close and paths unfolding and the universe catching me when I take a leap of faith. I keep telling myself that if the worst case is that I stay at home with baby G for a while, that I'll be fine. Life is big and what happens next doesn't have to be forever.

But in addition to being scared and uncertain, I keep circling back to being really, really sad. Sad that I don't get to keep doing what I'm doing. Sad that what we worked so hard for on our campus wasn't enough. Sad that so many of us are displaced and unemployed and waking with a pit in our stomachs.

I will say that baby snuggles soften the blow of terrible news, so I'm trying to focus on that. Today is the girls' last day of school, so they'll certainly keep me busy in the coming weeks. And I know that I can be resilient, but damn, being resilient is exhausting, you know? I'd rather just be gainfully employed doing what I love to do.