April 15, 2011

  • Did you know there was a dark cloud over your head?


    photo by Ellen von Unwerth for Russian Vogue

    Okay. What.

    Sunny Jim was accepted to teacher's college. I'm happy about it, I guess. I am for his sake. I have doubts about whether or not it's the right fit. I just can't picture him as a teacher. It makes me feel awful - I'm his fiancée, after all, and I should be more supportive. But I can't help it, I think it's a mistake. I worry that he'll get through school and get a job and, on the other side of a mass of student debt, he'll realize it's not where he wants to be. Then what?

    To be completely honest, he should be in a trade. He likes to work with his hands (and to have something to show at the end of a day) and he's not so crazy about people. I'm positive if he could spend the whole day building cabinets, he'd be completely content. I tried to get him to sign up for a carpentry course this past year (significantly cheaper than teacher's college and, to my mind, much more useful). He balked at the last minute. He won't say it, but he either thinks it's beneath him (subconsciously, of course) or he's afraid he'd be inept or both. 

    But at least it's a direction. Making a decision was a big step. His inability to settle on something was starting to f*ck with his notion of Self and his ability to see his - and our - future, which is starting to loom large, as they say. Aimless drifting is better suited to younger men (practically and psychologically). 

    Either way, I'm stuck in this dead-end-but-well-paid office job for another year at least - assuming they continue to renew my contracts and, with an attitude like this, there's no reason to think they would. The former is torture, the latter terrifying. I'm mildly resentful about being in this situation at all. Is that unconscionably selfish?

    Gah, I don't know what I think. I am the dictionary definition of ambivalence.  

    g.

Comments (2)

  • I think sometimes it's enough to just make a decision--no matter what it is. Just for the practice. And sometimes you have to know what doesn't fit before you can really understand what does (and, if this isn't the right fit, maybe it won't take the length of the program for him to realize it).

    I often have this debate in my head where I can't decide if it's reasonable to expect that a job is going to be a thing that makes you really happy in life, or if it's more reasonable to hope that your job in some way gives you the freedom or the means to do the things that make you happy outside of work. This is not in line with my usually shamelessly idealistic thinking. I would like to love my work eventually, but... I don't know.

    h.

  • @sixacross - I'm more the latter - only because I can't believe anyone would actually pay me to do the things I love. But I always thought the song lyric was apt: "we work to live until we live to work." That probably applies (mostly) across the board.

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