A Contender

I feel like my dreams have shattered on the ground.
Like I have a hard time breathing - the air has grown thick
I have grown thick
Duty calls
Always calling

It's a week away from SBL.  Still no invites (although, thanks to the wiki, I know that we have only lost one more job - our last real chance at a tenure track.  But there is a lectureship that could still write in the next week.).  I just, I feel like things could have gone better than this.  No, that's not quite right - seeing what the market is truly like, I realize that they most likely will keep on getting worse than this.  I just wanted things to go better than this.  I wanted to buy a house. Getting the job at BYU was the best chance for that. Now, our best (best!) case scenario is to get a post doc, and barring that the one VAP that's open, or a three year lectureship. And that's it.  There are six post docs total. (And two more TT, but I am not holding my breath).  I feel like we have no future. I mean, in the long, long run if Avram gets a post doc, and then a TT I will feel good. Or even a post doc, VAP and then tenure track. I just am worried that either we will get nothing this year, and will have a still born career, that never even started before it was over. That Avram will feel like he could have been somebody, could have been a contender, but never got a chance to show anyone. Or even worse in some ways, that we will get a post doc, a VAP, something, maybe two somethings, and then never even find a TT after that.  How old could we be then?  I could be as old as 37, and with no future, no home, no security.

I never wanted to be poor.  I spent my whole childhood poor, and it was not to my liking (not that I think it is to anyone's). I just - I was smart.  So smart.  Everyone told me I was smart. And that I had so much potential.  And I hitched my star to Avram, who was also so smart, had so much potential.  And now I worry that it will all come crashing down - that maybe we aimed too high, and so instead of enjoying a comfortable middle, we will fall and fall and free fall into nothing.  Not that I need public acclaim.  Obviously I am in the wrong job if that were my aim.  No, but it isn't bad, either.  Much more than that, though, I fear having to scrimp and save throughout my children's lives.  I fear never having enough, always living hand to mouth.  I feel like being intelligent, living in some kind of meritocracy, should have spared me from this. And it's not going to.

I just - I guess I thought that if we put enough sacrifice in, that we would get out a job.  (Now, to be fair, I did know that we had to work for it, but I didn't know that jobs were so few on the ground.)