Life as a Series of Changes or Crises

In the five days between talking with my bestie Ruth, my life managed to catapult into entire upheaval, mostly in a good way, though. Our weekly phone dates, which have been going on for near a decade go far beyond the bare bones updating that happens with longer distance/time friends, and so I felt almost no qualms in stating in one breath:

So, I’m starting a private practice. And some (paraphrasing for privacy) pretty interesting personal things happened in our sex life, and I feel mixed emotions that I want to process with you.  And I interviewed a nanny, and liked her, but worried she’ll be flakey. And did I mention I’m teaching an additional class next quarter? And why do I always feel like when we talk it sometimes feel like I’m giving you a pinball list of my next crazy adventure.

She laughed, and said, ‘you know, I’ve come to realize, that most of my friends leave rather boring day to day lives. And when things are good with me and Barnes we’re good, and I don’t need to report on it at all, and we talk about things like deep religion and stuff, and then when things are up in the air or hard I need to process. And so in talking with friends, it can seem like our lives are a series of changes or crises.”

Boy did she hit the nail on the head, per usual.

Brought on my some frustration at work, I went out to coffee with a former classmate who has managed to start a counseling agency. An agency with a contract with a local school district so counselors can provide therapy to students. A counseling agency with a billing specialist, scheduler, 8 treatment rooms and a group room, an ARNP in-house for medications, and access to insurance panels. She said she’d love to have me on board, and it’s when I finally let myself remember that I love doing therapy, and am excited to see where this goes, and the possibility for 6 clients a week could almost equal $20,000 extra a year (on the high end), and that while I’m nervous about adding an extra day to my plate, it’s not forever, possibly time limited for a year or so depending on whether I get pregnant, but it could be an opportunity for me to get this other part of my soul fulfilled.

And so, the nanny interviewing begins. We met a woman who seems like a great fit, though I’m worried about her being flaky, and so I hope that added stress doesn’t happen because I am already feeling super nervous about my transition from 4 to 5 days, and I really want Potamus to have a good time with a fun person, and that’s what it seems to be. Ugh I hate being an adult sometimes and having to deal with all the stress, added on top of that the whole mommy guilt which I mostly avoid, but it rears its ugly head in situations like this where I feel like I’m tipping the balance of family to career focus.

But then I think, how great it’ll be in the summers, when I work one day a week, and he’s only in care 2-3 days, and the rest with me. That there are plenty of moms who work 5 days a week, and that dads never worry about this type of commitment. And that if I’m able to even make an extra $15,000 that would pay for childcare for a second kid if the time came to it. And I’d be able to flex my therapy muscles.

So there you go, a series of crises and changes in my world.

Career, Motherhood, Identity

I applied for a new job this week. An academic/career counselor at a local technical college. Pros: $11,000 more money to start than I make currently, teaching 6 credits a quarter, counseling (rather than case-management), shorter commute, and tenure-track. Cons: working 5 days a week (I work 4 currently), 10 month contract (rather than 9 months), and not guaranteed with my ‘at risk youth’ population I do love so much.

I applied within 2 hours of noticing it had come open. After two years at  my current job I have yet to officially apply to anything (I’ve searched, plenty), and thought this was a really great fit. And yet, after disclosing to some friends that I applied, I noticed some mixed responses. There’s Mari and my co-worker Bethany, who thought it sounded amazing and like I should go for it. Then there’s my co-instructor, who seemed stricken at the thought of me possibly leaving because ‘this place would fall apart if one of us just left suddenly,’ my buddy Russ who laughed and said, ‘of course you’ll get it, you are magic and always say you never get it but you manage to, though will you stay for longer than 7 months?” And my friend Amelia, who I went to coffee with today, who said, “I thought you loved your job, why are you thinking of leaving? You’ve only been there two years. You’ve managed to commit to a husband, why do you move jobs so much?”

I sometimes wonder if this is an adoptee symptom, grass is always greener mixed with the idea that once you like something it might change or go south, so I bail before that happens. Maybe. Or maybe I’m stuck in a social worker heart with a business world mindset. Nobody in a business setting would think my approach to job searching as anything to be ashamed of. They would admire my ability to be strategic, gather skills at a job and keep my eyes on the horizon for the next thing to come up, and my ability to jump ship when it’s sinking, so I don’t go down in flames. I was at my first non-profit for 7 months, my crisis counseling job for 16 months (12 working, since 4 were on maternity leave,) and now I’m starting year 3 at my college instructor job. If this was a business world, they would admire my ability to achieve career trajectory in 4 years post-graduate school.

I really love my job currently, with the exception of a few things, like incompetent leadership that drives me crazy. I have aspirations and feel dumbed down by my department, though that could be fixed if my boss, or the good ol’ boys network, would give me the freedom to create some classes that would make the program better. And tenure. That would be good, too. This could all be general musing in a theoretical situation, since the job is only posted for ten days, which I’ve learned from my time in higher education usually means there’s an internal candidate that they want to promote.

I felt defensive after coffee today. I know my friend meant well, but it irked me. Since Boof and I are loosely talking about having another kid, she’s like “but you’d be spending your whole pay raise on childcare?” And I said, ” yes, but without that pay raise, I’d be taking a PAY CUT to have another kid and pay for childcare.” Facepalm. I wonder, too, if this wanting a new job is a way for me to postpone the thought of trying for another kid (though if I got it, I’d have more freedom in when I got pregnant, not bound by my program’s inability to get a teacher to cover my classes, and at the new place I could have a baby whenever).

And maybe my friend is wrong. Maybe I can commit, but I don’t want to spend my time dicking around dating when I can move on and find a ‘husband.’ Maybe if I settle in to a tenure track position doing what I want, I would dive in feet first and build a lifelong love at that institution. Maybe I’ve just been dating losers, even ones I’ve liked well enough. Ya know?

How do you handle career trajectory? Do you jump at a chance to change jobs? Do you fantasize about leaving your current job for something else? 

On Starting Another Fall Quarter

I have fond memories of Indian Summer in Seattle. The air is warm, the nights are beginning to cool and get shorter, and there’s the smell of freshly sharpened pencils and new shoes all around. Fall feels like back to school, and it’s no wonder that this rhythm feels comforting to me. I love academia. I enjoyed my time in K-12 schooling, and certainly continued to enjoy my time in college and further on in graduate school. I enjoyed the school environment so much I got a job in Academia, and here I am, beginning my third year as a college instructor.

This quarter I had the privilege of teaching outside of my normal program, in a First Year Experience class with incoming freshman. It was so refreshing to teach my similar human development coursework to these bright eyed and bushy tailed incoming freshman. To create a mini community a week before classes start and see how they interact with the material. I loved it, even though I am exhausted from teaching 5 hours straight and then holding office hours. I remember that I’m an introvert.

And it makes me extremely pleased when students come up and ask me, ‘what class do you teach here? can I take it?’ Unfortunately I only teach classes in a program for students who’ve dropped out of high school, so they won’t be in one of my classes again. I guess it makes me think…is there something more for me? If these students wanted to take a class from me, what would it be? Would I like to someday teach Psychology 101, or English 101, or another course subject? And if I do want that, how do I go about getting there?

I forget how much I love teaching at this level.  I forget, when I’m in the overly frantic summer quarter off, trying to cram camping trips and house projects into my three months off, that I live for this academic school year rhythm. I am not sure that I would love it so much without the break, that it leaves room for me to come back in the Fall with an “Ah, yes, this is what I’m meant to do.”

But it leaves me thinking, pondering, reflecting, on where I am and where I want to go in the future. I know that this is right for me right now. I absolutely believe that. I think it’ll be right for me for a little bit more, at least, but then what? Where is this ship going?

Face Forward to Go Forward

I had used the line before, but it was different this time. I’m not sure why this client clung to me (metaphorically, of course), but sometimes that’s the nature of crisis-work. There becomes a trauma-bond that they feel when you come and see them in the most vulnerable state, and then six weeks later they are crushed when you tell them that they have changed, are stronger, and need to keep moving forward without you. It’s the nature of crisis work, nothing personal, I tell them up-front, but there were those clients who had lots of feelings when it came to that final goodbye.

And so, my Family-Advocate and I, sat in the moldy smelling family room, with her mom and dad and sister and long-time therapist, and we had a final family meeting. And the dad, overwhelming nervous about the prospect of this crisis happening again, asked “what do we do if it happens again. We don’t want to go back,” and I replied:

When you’re driving you look through the windshield. You need to glance in the rear-view mirror to see where you’ve come from, and what might be behind you, but if you stare in the rearview mirror you’ll crash. You have to keep your eyes focused on what’s ahead. The forward journey. Glance back, but keep moving forward.

There was a moment of hush in the room. It wasn’t anything magical, I’d said it a hundred times, and it’s something I believe in, but in that moment it hit the family in a spot that they needed. Even the therapist, who had been working with this young lady for years, and was a long-time therapy supervisor, was stunned. I might have blushed because half the time I think I’m fucking everything up and about 1 step away from being found a fraud.

+++++++++

I thought of this experience this morning, as I buckled Potamus into the car. We’re a month early, but we turned his car seat around to face forward. His legs had been scrunched for awhile now, and we thought it best. And he was Mr. Nonchalant about the whole thing, clearly based on the picture above. And as I drove I kept catching glimpses of him in the backseat and had to remind myself to keep my eyes on the road. I could state at his wild blonde hair and intense eyes forever. I could get stuck in the nostalgia of the first car trip with him, all 7lbs, bundled up so snugly as we drove home from the hospital. I know that nostalgia, sentiment, memories are good…really good…but I can’t live there, in the past. We move forward, driving off into the sunrise, and work, and daycare, and a new Holiday-Week, and it’s okay.

 

I think I’ve had three husbands: Navigating spousal career changes | Offbeat Home

Ya’ll, I’ve been published over on Offbeat Home! I think I’ve had three husbands: Navigating spousal career changes | Offbeat Home.

Head on over and give me some love?

Is Being Adopted Shaping my Career?

My psychologist is kicking my butt. She basically accused me of thinking too much and not letting myself feel (totally true. totally nailed it in session #4 people!), but I don’t really know HOW to feel. I do know how to think, how to over-think, and how to think some more. I also know how to catastrophize like nobody’s business.

At any rate, in an attempt to avoid feeling all the feelings about that early trauma of separation from my safe place (mom) and being raised by genetic strangers, I decided to think about my job. And it made me wonder…I am working with 16-20 year old “at-risk youth” in a community college setting. I am teaching them skills to succeed at school. And my biological mother was 16 when she got pregnant, and my biological dad was 20 when I was born. My biological mom did not finish high school, but did complete her GED, and my dad completed HS but had a 3.9 GPA and NOBODY suggested he go to college. And, my maternal half siblings did not finish high school (and my half bro got his GED…I think). I guess my question is….am I trying to work with my biological family?

Am I throwing myself into a situation, a passion, in some sort of karmic attempt at rescuing my parents? Do I see these vulnerable young ones and want to spark a fire for education in their life, to empower them toward greatness, so they don’t end up in a situation where they have to give their firstborn away as atonement for their “sins”? Am I somehow trying to connect with my family in this choice of career?

Or (or maybe an) am I trying to distance myself from my family? Do I like sitting on the other side of the desk, seeing that I have “made it,” that I am “not like them,” as if my life is somehow a proof that my biological parents made the right decision in letting me be raised by strangers. Because, see, I am not like them anymore. I am educated. I am in the middle-class. I am…fill in the blank.

Or, do I do it to prove something to my adoptive family? To protect myself from further abandonment by both excelling in education and also working in a compassion field to show my humility?

Could all of those reasons be true? Or not true? And does it matter? Does the motivations, or the impetus, or the reason that I end up in a job really matter? Or is what matters that I feel like I fit here, that I belong, that I was actually made for this type of work? Does me trying to work out my own identity or story take away from the “goodness” of doing this type work?

And how can I just let myself feel, instead of always just thinking about things?

To Apply or Not to Apply, That is the Question

I’m taking a break, at work, from working on my cover letter and resume. I hadn’t anticipated that 6 months into my new job, I would be considering changing positions. After all, this was the job that I had specifically requested the Universe provide for me: 20-30 hours a week, flexible, teaching AND advising/counseling at a College. I mostly really enjoy my job, though there’s some passive aggressive communication that happens in our very tiny department, I mostly log my hours, teach my classes and go home…to where I am spending a lot of my time with Potamus, playing and having fun. I work 32 hours a week, Monday-Thursday, and have three day weekends every week. Or four days if it falls on a holiday like President’s Day!

So why am I considering another position? Well, it’s full-time (35 hours a week), tenure track Faculty Counselor. More $$. More security (after tenure). More Counseling. And my friend/graduate school peer would be my director. She’s motivated, driven, and inspirational. The program is not robust right now, and I could be on the cutting edge in making it into a thriving counseling department. The downsides is that it is more hours and less teaching. But, it’s what I actually went to school for (college counseling), and the pay is pretty darn good.

I feel torn. My mind flops back and forth on whether to apply. Many tell me “what’s the harm in applying?” But, by applying, I am showing that I am looking for other things, that I do not want to settle in to this job for the long-haul. Though that’s not entirely the case, because I do see myself here for another year or two before I would feel stifled. Part of me feels like not applying sells myself short, and that I deserve to be challenged and promoted, because I have a strong work-ethic and like a team environment where I feel challenged toward doing better, being better.

The reason to stay in my current job, is that I’ve only been here 6 months (5 months, truly, because of Winter Break), and feel that I owe myself and the position some time to get settled in and really shape how I want it to go. Right now, though, I know I could do this job through the end of next school year without much problem. And I LOVE the teaching portion, but the adivising portion is less than stellar. Though I also know that without much guidance or focus I tend to slip into madly-pinning-on-Pinterest. I’m not good at making myself busy when I don’t have to be. I could see myself sliding into a sort of humdrum complacency, which usually makes me irritable.

Sigh.

I hate this feeling.

I know that applying wouldn’t guarantee me the job. It’s a hot ticket item in this economy, but I do know that I’d have a better shot at it because I’m already in the system. If I did get it, I’m sure I would love that job, too. It’d be different than what I’m doing, but still probably fulfilling. It would just be different. And I’d be making more $, and more security. But I’d also be working more, which would mean less time with Potamus. But not THAT much less time, since it’s only 3 hours a week more.

So…should I apply? Or not?

What motivates you?

There have been times in my life where I have been more or less self-motivated to do a lot of work. Most of those times where I was overly motivated, it was because a lack of self-confidence in myself and a worry that I was going to be canned at any second. Times where I have been less-than motivated have usually been out of rebellion because of micro-management. I don’t always like to be told just to DO something, just to DO it. Ya know?

But in this job, I have quite a lot of autonomy and am able to do a lot at my own discretion. There are a few tasks when I am in the office on Mondays/Wednesdays that I am supposed to get done, like advising students and getting progress reports done, etc. The challenge is, I am working mostly alone, which isn’t my strong suit. I like doing things as a team, or at least being around others to bounce ideas off each other. Sitting alone in my office (yes, I’ve graduated from cubicle to my OWN (shared with my co-teacher) office), which is sometimes more isolating than helpful (except for student meetings). The challenge with this job, though, is that there is also not a lot of direction. I don’t actually have a job description, per se. The way I was hired was all sorts of weird (the job was posted for Tues/Thurs teaching. Then, when they offered me the job they told me about the Mon/Wed advising for hourly. Granted, because of my friend I HAD known that would be the gig, but still, it all seems shady to me).

I have drive and ambition and when I get to work I get overwhelmed with the different things I could be doing, and end up facebooking or looking at pinterest, or mostly just surfing around getting distracted. I don’t necessarily know what to do. At home I talk with Boof about it, and I get super excited and motivated to do things, to make a plan or a proposal for a method of advising or do something, but at work I slide to the lowest common denominator, which is pushing the food around on our plate pretending that we are eating. It was like this in sports, when I played on a team and we were playing a good team, I would rise to the challenge. But if we were playing a sloppy team, we tended to play less well. Now I don’t give myself enough credit, as I did see about 7 students today, even if only for a few minutes at a time, and have been prepping for class tomorrow, but I wish I was working on some type of project, and that I could be motivated daily to do it!

What motivates you when those around you don’t seem to be doing anything? I don’t want to be an overachiever or put so much on my plate that I am overworked, but I don’t want to just sit around doing nothing.

Thoughts?

Now What? Moving on After Rejection.

I’m trying to remind myself that we are all made of sparkle dust, souls merely existing earth-bound for a period of time, and that, in cliche terms, this too shall pass, but hot damn I haven’t cried so much in months.

Yesterday Boof found out that the job he wanted, the firm we felt SO good about, the one he had built relationships with people who seemed to really get him and be excited to offer him a job…isn’t going to happen. The official rejection letter came on Saturday. We were crushed. Not just crushed because, at this moment, he has no other options lined up, and that firms are so far into their interviewing/hiring process that he has virtually no shot, but because we had felt so good about it. So good. That gut feeling that I always get when something is going to work out…yeah…that meter is clearly off now.

Square one.

In the practical reality of things, nothing has changed, save the hope that things would be different come the first of the year. Boof is still studying for his CPA exams, watching Potamus in conjunction with his own mom, and we are still scrimping and relying on our in-laws to float us indefinitely. I am still the not-quite-enough-breadwinner, the one who gets up in the dark and leaves my sleeping boys to trudge through rainy traffic to the ‘office.’

Nothing has really changed.
And we aren’t even at risk for feet of flooding like my East Coast friends.

Sparkle on.

Homeschool, Public School and Career Development

A few years ago, when working at a non-profit with my good friend Russ, we had a discussion about career development as it pertained to the youth we served. All of our kiddos were in foster care, and we were attempting to help them graduate high school and go on to college. The high school success rate for students in foster care is pretty abysmal, so our organization was trying everything it could to help these students see the value in education. But the conversation that Russ and I had, was about how school wasn’t always about education, or rather the information that we learned during the hours of 7-3, but rather the other skills that we absorbed that were important in preparing us for the working world. Russ and I participated in a leadership team that was guiding the future of the organization and yet we often found that the “leadership” wasn’t really listening to those of us that were on the front lines. I wish I could remember the study that told us, that freshman year was a great predictor in graduation rates, and how the “soft skills” that were learned were actually more important than knowing all of the presidents or when WWII started.

How does this relate to my class today?

Well, Russ and I are now both “professors” at this local college. And we re-connected a few weeks ago in a work capacity, talking about how our students are prepared or unprepared for life on a college campus. We rekindled this discussion from a few years ago, and I mentioned that in the self-reflections that I had my students write the home schooled students mentioned things like, “I haven’t taken English in over 3 years so writing this paper is hard for me,” and “I am not used to turning things in on a deadline, so I guess I have to work on that,” and ” I’m used to studying things I like.” My public school students said things like, “I am worried about turning in all of my homework,” and “I’m worried about not showing up to class like I’ve done before.”

In this way, I feel like both models have failed our children in various ways. Because, as Russ and I keep talking about, education/schooling is really (whether right or wrong) about preparing workers…drones…people to work in offices from 8-5. The byproduct of education is knowledge and a passion for learning and a curiosity for life around us. It helps to foster discussions and probably makes us better, more informed, people. I love learning about new things, but what I also learned, from kindergarten-12th grade, and then on into higher education was: show up on time, do the work you are asked to do, follow directions, interact with people, pay attention, turn things in on time, sit still, etc. All of these skills are transferable to the workplace, predominately office work of some type.

So, my home school students, who have been encouraged to study things they like and are interested in, will hopefully benefit from their education by finding a career that interests them, because they have had the empowerment to already begin to explore those interests. What worries me about my home school kiddos, is that they haven’t been forced (such  a nasty word!) to do things that they aren’t that interested in, just because “this is the way the world works,” or “this is the way we do it.” If they don’t find a career right away in the interesting field of their choice, or even if they do, will they know how to be timely in assignments that they don’t like? For my student who hasn’t ever had a deadline for things, will, at 19, it be too late for them to learn? How much harder will it be for them to conform to a mold of “normal” career development or as a worker when they have been allowed years of unbridled educational freedom? Or, can we envision a new workforce that allows for this to not be the case? (Things like, the rise of flex-time, and online work, perhaps might fit this).

And, for some of my public schoolers, who have been, seemingly broken down and lack a drive for education (the pursuit of knowledge and information), but also have not learned the soft-skills of timeliness, and turning in work that they don’t see the value in, what hope do they have? When they do come to class, they do the work (most of them), which shows a good work ethic, regardless of whether they find value in the actual assignment. When explaining the per-requisite nature of the classes for the major, I hear no grumbling like with the home schooled students, because these student seem used to the ‘jumping through hoops’ nature of the education system. In theory, though, public school does teach these skills of being on-time (and natural consequences are getting a lower grade, which would equate to a reprimand and firing at a job), sitting doing “work” for hours on end, short breaks (5 minute passing time), and being forced to do some tasks that you don’t really want to do.

I don’t know the answer, but it does seem like, in theory, our education is supposed to prepare us for our jobs, and it’s seemingly failing both sets of my students. I wonder how a mainstream teacher, not dealing with “high school dropouts” or “non-traditional students,” feels about how their students are prepared/unprepared for college work and/or work post-school. Is the disillusionment that our time is our own and we can do what we want and study what we want better to happen early in our education career (ala public school) or at the entrance into college (ala my homeschoolers)?