We take turns having panic attacks these days.
In summary, our choice seems crazy – give up a solid, decently paying job with good benefits in order to live as two graduate students in a new city with no family nearby and a one year old baby to raise.
Go into more details, and it looks even dumber. Borrow more student loans, so soon you will owe the equivalent of the mortgage on a 2000 sf house in a nice neighborhood. Speaking of houses, sell your own 900 sf house and don’t buy back into the market, instead renting and paying somebody else’s mortgage as home prices climb and you miss out on the rise, even though you suffered the decline. And sell it in less than 90 days, for what it’s worth or more – an ambitious (foolish?) endeavor. Cross your fingers that the cars sell for what Kelly Blue Book says they’re worth, that the move and the research trip to Brazil and the home-sale costs are minimal. Pray that the one car you keep will hold out for three years. Pray that the husband will find work when we arrive. Pray that you will find paying internships for the summers, that your aging eggs will hold as you put off adding to the family until at least one of you is employed with benefits.
What’s not to be worried about?
A dive into the unknown, and it looks so, so unbelievably stupid when written in that way. Who would do this crazy thing?
Me. I needed to. I have been walking on air since the day I turned in my notice, so I know I did the right thing. One thing this recession should have taught everybody is that no one is safe – even the people who piled money into their 401k for years, the people who bought a home to live in and expected a modest rise in value, the people who worked for ACME widget-making company for 5, 10, 20 years and then got laid off one Monday morning without warning. Stable is not stable. Safety is an illusion.
I’m still searching earnestly for work in the area, but having received hundreds of resumes now for my own position, I understand more fully why I haven’t received a single call. Short of adding a nude photo to the top (meOW), I’m not sure there’s any way to get your resume to grab attention. You have to know somebody to get in to the good places – even the bad places, these days. I’m continuing to pursue any leads I get, but given that I work in the back of beyond and the only people I ever have contact with are also in the back of beyond, and the back of beyond currently has an unemployment rate of over 14% – well, sliding myself into the tight market in “the big city” seems nigh impossible.
Patrick and I have trodden non-traditional paths our whole lives – it’s why we found each other. When I was 21, I got on a plane and moved to Australia for a year. When he was about the same age, he joined Americorps and earned something like 14 cents an hour to perform a year of service to the country. We are no stranger to living on the edge, and doing it very frugally. The complicating factor now is, of course, our little son.
So for him, we choose to set this example: that sometimes when life sticks you between a rock and a hard place, you have to figure out how to grow some wings and fly yourself outta there. There is a balance between the immaturity of pursuing immediate gratification, and the soullessness of letting your life control you. Follow your joy, with an eye for the future but your feet planted firmly in the NOW.
You guys got any other platitudes for me? Because I need you to hold my hand here.
It looks like, barring a miraculous intervention from the HR job gods – in August, just 90 days from now, I’m going to begin my first year at Tulane law school.