A while ago, I got an invitation for a Princeton alumni dinner with the dean of the grad school there. I put it aside. Why would I go? I don't like groups of people I don't know, I feel self-conscious about my distinctive lack of a career compared with other PU grads, and I didn't think I had anything to wear.
But, AJ persuaded me that I should go, and that he should come with me (a really good dinner at a nice place downtown, compliments of PU), and so we went. It was a smallish group--there were probably only 12 of us total. We sat at the table the whole time, and there was no formal remarks--or fundraising attempts--from the dean. We were late and sat at the end of the table with the younger crowd who were more recently at PU. In fact, a woman who now works as an environmental chemist at a university here recognized me, though I didn't remember her at all. After realizing that we both have daughters that are 7, she figured out that we had been in a new mom group sponsored through a local hospital for a short time when they were both tiny. I can't believe she figured that out.
All in all, it was a great evening. I loved talking with really smart people who are doing things like building a balloon telescope or teaching at a charter school, and while I didn't make any professional connections, it left me with better feelings towards PU than I have had in a while.
So, as I was thinking about going to the dinner and reflecting on my time at PU, I realized:
1. It's good for me to have some distance from my grad school experience there. I am so full of ambivalence about it, but looking back, there were lots of good things that happened while I was there and I knew a lot of amazing people.
2. I actually like the research I did when I was there. This probably seems like a "no duh" to anybody else, but writing the dissertation was just such a painful process and I often felt so lackluster and inferior there, that it overshadowed the work that I liked.
3. And this is separate but related. The relative peace that I have felt about mothering this past year is very context dependent. MJ is in school most of the day, T has preschool three afternoons a week, Baby Z is still taking two naps a day. During the summer, I very carefully scheduled MJ and T into activities that would give them something else other than just being at home with me. I have time for me--to read and do other things without kids around. Every once in a while, a situation flares up, and all my old feelings return, and I see that I am never going to be that mother who feels totally satisfied in all aspects of myself when staying with my kids and tending to domestic items. And that I'm just fine with that.
Baby Z is almost a year old. I'm going to dust off the vita and see if I can get any nibbles.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Things I realized last week
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5 comments:
I'm glad it was a good night for you! I admit to similar feelings about alumni events at my grad school....although I am sure those feelings are magnified when you attend an Ivy League school!
I recently realized that I stopped getting phone calls from the career placement office at my MBA school about my current job & salary. I think I was seriously weighing down their average salary figures they like to boast about in their brochures to prospective students.
Folks like you have my eternal respect. You completed something that was intellectually challenging. Not all of us can say that. I realize it's small consolation, but I'll stand by my statement.
But yes, distance is good. They say time is a great healer, but it's also good for perspective.
And to your third point: Context is very much the key. And introspection is almost a curse.
Just last week, I had a co-worker who is very accomplished and seemed satisfied with her life tell me with a pang of regret how she thought she would have had kids by now (she's almost 40) but doesn't.
It's like if you keep your mind busy, you can make peace. But if you stop to think, all the rhetorical questions start flooding in. It's maddening.
Understand exactly your feelings about motherhood. Academic work and my subsequent employment always left me happy but alone inside my own head. I loved staying home with my children also, but those early years were so difficult for me as the silence and stillness I seem to require were never there. Nor was the stimulation of interacting with other adults with similar interests. Glad you enjoyed your evening out.
Yeah, Jen. I've thought about how they want to blot people like me out of their job placement stats. I feel like such a scourge on their record!
Ed, so many people do intellectually challenging things. (Stanford undergrad, anyone?) And they do them a lot better than I did. Not that I don't feel proud of what I did, but thinking of that period of dissertation writing when I was so isolated just puts my stomach in knots and I've realized that I'm not well suited to live a life as a brilliant independent researcher. I do much better working with groups, with deadlines and some external incentives.
I try not to second guess my decisions but it's hard. There was one point after we moved to NYC where I had decided to drop out of school without finishing. I wonder what would have happened if I had done that.
Frances, thanks for your thoughts. I like the "alone" aspects of academic work, and I do find it hard with all the busyness of domestic life to find much quiet--in both the physical sense, but also the "inside my head" sense. It's hard to put a cohesive and in-depth argument together in snatches. One of the things I miss most is that I don't interact with many adults who have academic interests and I miss those conversations about big ideas. That was part of the fun of the alumni night--such a wide range of interests and pursuits.
I'd like to continue this conversation offline, as they say, so as to not clog up your comments section, but I lost your e-mail. Drop me an empty e-mail at ed.guzman@stanfordalumni.org, and I'll write back.
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