Posts Tagged ‘Career’

Apr 2013

Going To Mars

When I moved to Houston a couple years ago after meeting and falling in love with a Kansas-to-Houston transplant, I had heard the idea that Texas was less like another state and more like another planet. And it does feel like another planet to me…a planet filled with strange and interesting creatures. Men.

The only memories I have of my father from when I was young are spotty; trying to remember what it was like to live with him is like trying to remember a dream several hours after you had it. I remember seeing him perform in plays as a professional actor, but I don’t remember him at home. When I was five, my mother left my father and took me to Michigan to live with my grandma and my very young aunt. For the next fourteen years, this group of three women would come to define my concept of family. Though I had uncles and I saw my dad occasionally until his death in 1998, when I was speaking of my family, I was thinking of my mom, aunt, and grandma, as well as the other female relatives on my mom’s side with whom we were all close. It didn’t occur to me that anything was missing, really, because I had never really known what it was like to have a male presence in my life. When I got to college, I joined a sorority, extending the family I had become accustomed to include 114 other women, 50 of whom I shared a house with for two years.

Despite the fact that I loved being surrounded by women, a lot of my thoughts in high school and college were focused on boys. While this isn’t out of the ordinary, my appreciation for the opposite sex stemmed not only from attraction but also from…fascination. Who were these other creatures? How did they think? Why did they act the way they did? If men were from Mars and women were from Venus, I was mesmerized by the Martians. They weren’t my kind. I didn’t get them at all, so that’s what I focused on. Getting in their heads and getting them in bed. When I began my writing career, I wrote about both topics quite regularly.

My mom had another baby when I was nineteen, and for the first time, my family had a male presence in our multigenerational home. When Preston was born, he looked otherworldly; he had the large, curious eyes and careful movements of a Furby. As he grew up, we realized he couldn’t have been more different than I was as a child, and this, it seemed, was further proof that boys and men were not from my planet. They were Others. And I had no idea how to live with them.

When I first moved to Houston a few years later, I didn’t live with Eric. I found a roommate and took a marketing job at The Motherhood Center, which had pre-natal classes, baby and toddler music classes, and lots of family events. The staff and clientele were overwhelmingly female, so once again, I was surrounded by women and back in my comfort zone.

Then my boss left, so I found a new job, where I was one of two women on the staff. And then I moved in with Eric, which was pretty much like finding E.T. in my shed. All of the experiences I had gained from dating and observing men for several years did very little to help me understand Eric. And not long after I started at my new job, my female coworker was let go and I became the only woman on a team of eight people. At a tech startup. In Texas. Being surrounded by men in my personal life and professional life made me feel like my ship had suddenly crashed on their planet, and I was terrified. Continue reading Going To Mars

Posted in: Friends & Relations, Gender & Feminism, Planning | 27 Comments »

Nov 2012

Reclaiming Wife: Not Living Up to Potential

I cherish every opportunity we get on APW to talk about relationships and careers. As a success kid, it’s these posts that help the most to release a little of the pressure I’ve put on myself to do ALL THE CAREER THINGS, ALL BY MYSELF, RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND. Which is why I love this morning’s post from Ashleyn (well that and the fact that if I’d read it three years ago, I probably wouldn’t have stayed in my crappy “dream” job for quite as long). Her story is about how, even for fiercely ambitious and independent women, sometimes it ends up taking a relationship with another person to find that inner peace that allows us figure out what we really want ourselves.

—Maddie For Maternity Leave

I was supposed to be a success. I was supposed to be the girl who made it big and made everyone proud. I was talented, driven, creative.

Somehow along the way, I turned out disappointing.

Growing up in a tiny Midwestern farming community, I became slightly obsessed with the idea of Getting Out of There. I didn’t know how exactly I was going to do it though, and so I did everything. I sang, danced, wrote, painted, and acted my way through school. I skipped a grade and tested in the ninety-eighth percentile. I sang a solo with the symphony in the closest city and was editor of the school paper.

At some point in the midst of all this, I decided I was going to be a magazine editor, the likes of which Vogue had never seen (ha.) So I went off to college, convinced I was never going back to that tiny town except in a glorious swirl of couture clothes.

I got to college and got lost. I hated all of my journalism classes with a surprising passion. I switched my major three times and decided to focus on my writing, while justifying my English major to myself as being a more universally applicable major. The whole time I kept hearing people say, “Do what you love and you will never work a day in your life.”

Every time someone said that, I wanted to cry.

What did I love to do? I loved to read historical biographies and cuddle with my cat. I loved to bake. I loved movies. I loved art galleries and loitering in museums for hours on end. Which one of those things would I be willing to do and love every day for the rest of my life? *

My problem was that all of the things I had done up until that point were all things that I liked. I enjoyed doing all of them. I was good at so many things, but there wasn’t that one thing that I was blessed with that I obviously was supposed to do. I would trade being good at a lot of things for being great at one thing any day. Continue reading Reclaiming Wife: Not Living Up to Potential

Posted in: Reclaiming Wife | 192 Comments »

Oct 2012

Reclaiming Wife: Making Your Own Luck

Yesterday we introduced you to the newest member of the APW staff, Editorial Assistant Emily. Now that we’ve all had a day to process how excited we are to have her (I’m still doing cartwheels, personally), Emily is back with her first post as staff, giving us a little insight into how she got here. Her story reminds us that the future is not a fixed target, but something we are continuously building toward together. And that sometimes hauling up your own star means letting your support system step in from time to time when your arms get tired. And now, Emily.

—Maddie for Maternity Leave

I was sitting in a pearl-colored rental car in the parking lot of Audubon Park when I was given the best life advice I’d ever heard. While worrying that starting our ceremony on the half hour would be a bad omen (our officiant was late and I’m superstitious), my husband-to-be reassured me by saying, “You make your own luck.” At the time, it calmed my nerves about the ceremony, but it lodged itself in my brain and became a phrase I’ve returned to many times since. It’s true in so many aspects of life. Love, dinner parties, tests. Even careers.

Before graduation, my post-college plans were incredibly vague. I was going to get like… a job. In publishing? Or teaching. Or go to grad school. Or move abroad. (“Move abroad,” in hindsight: not actually a plan.) When getting married became the new plan, I embraced it. It settled where I was going to live, because Ian had another year of school to finish. And because he had a good job, too, and we were splitting the cost of our rent and bills with two roommates, it allowed me the freedom of not having to work right away. Which was a huge gift, because within one year’s time, I had buried my father, graduated from college, moved cross-country, and eloped. And I needed a minute to breathe.

But once I recovered, I was a little lost. I worked as a bridal registry consultant but quit after eight months, with Ian’s full support. (Turns out I was bringing all the crap that customers gave me home, and I wasn’t the most pleasant person to be around.) I worked as a social media manager, but that turned out to be a temporary position. After speaking with the people I went to college with, I realized I didn’t want to be a professor, or be in sales, or work for my alma mater. What I wanted was a plan.

While I didn’t have a plan, I had managed to set myself up for success without realizing it, just by saying, “I do.” I married someone who believes I’m going to do great things someday, and someone who pushes me when I’m not achieving my full potential. I married someone I’m inherently competitive with, so when he’s successful, it drives me to accomplish something, too. Continue reading Reclaiming Wife: Making Your Own Luck

Posted in: Reclaiming Wife | 28 Comments »

Oct 2012

Staying Engaged After Losing a Job

Maddie and I had twin hilarious moments when reading submissions this week. One where Maddie said, “If you quote from Mean Girls, you’re my people.” And one when I read this post and said, “If you quote Edna St. Vincent Millay, you’re my people.” The APW staff, ladies and gentlemen. But, staff commentary aside (achem), Anya’s post on discovering what your partnership really is during hard times echoes everything I’ve learned this year, and echoes it with such grace.

I’ve always been worried that C. and I didn’t know how we would act in a truly difficult situation—that inevitable moment when things took a turn for the miserable. We have dated and been engaged through the best and smoothest years of my life, and I have worried, from time to time, that our relationship had never truly been tested. Did we know what we were getting into? We were comfortable, happy, at ease in a cute apartment halfway between our respective jobs. I was the main breadwinner while he contributed what he could to our expenses out of his graduate student salary.

Losing a job is never easy, and, thankfully, we have a wonderful support network, but when I lost my job without notice the world seemed to drop out from under me. My first thoughts were not of my own fate—but of ours. I was terrified that C. relied on me and that I could no longer deliver. If I were alone, this would be easier, I thought. It would be my loss, and I could bear it. I would move back home if I had to, and no one else would have to cut out meat from their diet in order to afford breaking the lease. I knew I could do this alone—I’d done it before—but together? Could he rough it with me? Could I bear letting someone else down?

When I got home that evening I was still not convinced it was easier together, but it was a relief to see him. It was a relief to have someone there, to hold me, to get angry on my behalf so I didn’t have to wallow in my own self-pity. It helped a lot to have someone who sat with me quietly, didn’t ask too many questions, and focused on the here-and-now. It turned out that I knew this man well, and he was just as wonderful in caring for me when I was heartbroken as he was in caring for me every other time. He didn’t let his worries overwhelm my need. He didn’t ask about tomorrow until I was done crying out today. And yet, while it was great to be in his arms, it was still awful to think about how he could live comfortably on his own salary alone, but now had to spread it thin to cover two people’s expenses through no fault of his own.

As the days passed, I noticed how his silent and constant presence calmed me and gave me fuel to persevere. With another person beside me who would sink or swim with me, I could not wallow and fall into depression. This was a true blessing. Dealing with adversity is different for everyone, but I deal best with difficulty when I can care for someone else through it. I am at a loss for how to heal my wounds, but with someone who is relying on me in the picture, I know exactly how to put one foot in front of the other. Action has always been my best medicine through hard times, and his presence spurned me into it, where otherwise I may have wallowed. Continue reading Staying Engaged After Losing a Job

Posted in: The Hard Stuff, Wedding Undergraduates | 19 Comments »

Sep 2012

Reclaiming Wife: Forward Motion

If there is one subject I’m perpetually fascinated with, it’s how our relationships and careers intertwine. Perhaps one of the reasons I find it so compelling is because it’s a relatively new problem. Its current incarnation has only existed for a generation or two, and we’re all still figuring out the ropes. Earlier this week we talked about how two careers are not a zero-sum game, and today, Kristine Harrington is exploring how her husband Steve sacrificed his career for hers (temporarily) and now is building his own. As someone who has been in Steve’s position, and who will one day probably be in Kristine’s position, I want to offer support all round (and discussion).

When Steve and I first met, we were already on the verge of physical separation. Completely twitterpated by our third date, I broke the news to him hesitantly that I had been accepted to nursing school out of state and would be leaving in a matter of weeks. His response? “Well let’s just see what happens then.”

You know the rest.

After I left, it didn’t take long for Steve to join me. He quit his job (at the height of the recession), packed up his car, shipped a storage container north, and moved into my (now our) 600-square-foot apartment. With his (now our) eighty-pound chocolate lab, who fast became friends with my (our) fluffy, bossy Bichon Maltese puppy. As I began what would be my hardest semester of nursing school.

Yeah, that was interesting. But somehow we survived and emerged (mostly) intact from the adventure. Unfortunately for us, I became a newbie RN in a saturated job market and quickly learned that nursing was far from the recession-proof career we all had believed it to be. My first job in critical care was in yet another state. Steve faithfully helped me pack up a moving van and moved with me. Then we moved back a year later when I realized that critical care nursing did not fit me at all.

All this is to say that Steve has repeatedly put his own needs and professional goals on the back burner throughout our relationship and early in our marriage. He hasn’t done so silently, nor would I expect him to do so. He’s taken soul-crushing jobs for which he is vastly overqualified, in the name of making rent and paying the bills. It’s affected him some days more than others. He’s struggled, but he’s survived the roller coaster much more gracefully than I ever would. Continue reading Reclaiming Wife: Forward Motion

Posted in: Reclaiming Wife | 63 Comments »

Sep 2012

Reclaiming Wife: The Julia Child Dilemma

This week, in one of those “it feels perfect for moving into fall” themes, we’re exploring Should I Stay, Or Should I Go, that middle ground where we’re forced to make decisions and figure out who we are and what we want. This first post, from Stephanie Early Green, explores the same ideas we touched on last week: balancing two sets of careers and dreams, and how we learn that being a team isn’t a zero-sum sport. If one of us is winning, that does not mean the other one is losing. And usually, we even (eventually) realize that.

My husband Alastair and I got married in May (*insert jump for joy here*) and we are moving abroad in October. His company has a program that allows certain employees to work out of two of the company’s foreign offices for six to nine months each, and there are about ninety-seven offices to choose from. The world is our oyster! After much deliberation and debate, we finally settled on Johannesburg, South Africa, followed by London—nine months each. It’s official.

Almost everyone to whom I’ve mentioned this opportunity gushes. They say things like, “Oh, how exciting!” and “What a cool opportunity!” and “The world is your oyster!” They’re right, of course. It’s an incredibly exciting opportunity. But up until very recently, whenever I thought about our upcoming adventure, about which other people seemed so positive, I felt apprehensive… and negative… and bummed out. Then I felt guilty about feeling apprehensive and negative and bummed out. Why are you being weird about this? I’d ask myself. This is awesome! Appreciate it, damn it! (As it happens, berating oneself does not generally help change one’s feelings. Who knew?)

It wasn’t that I was scared to go abroad. I’ve lived all over Latin America, most recently working in São Paulo for the second half of 2010 while Al was working in Nairobi (we are—not to brag—really good at Skyping). We also travel a lot together, usually taking one or two international trips a year when we can swing it, and I’m pretty comfortable being thrown into the deep end with languages, cultures, and crappy public transportation. I’ve got all that covered.

It also wasn’t that I was scared about living somewhere new with Al. Quite the opposite, in fact. Over the almost five years that we’ve been together, we’ve both lived all over the world—but always separately. I’m thrilled to bits at the prospect of living abroad with him, at having some little apartment with a weird bathroom with the drain in the floor by the toilet and a bidet (… probably).

So what was wrong with me? Why wasn’t I excited about this? Continue reading Reclaiming Wife: The Julia Child Dilemma

Posted in: Reclaiming Wife | 75 Comments »