Category Archives: Venting

Oh baby.

Babies, career, Venting

Every once in a while I get questions from my clients that throw me.

Today my intern was questioned about why she wasn’t married, and why she didn’t have babies. This intern, she’s amazingly intelligent. She’s a legal intern – one bar exam from becoming a fellow female attorney who I look forward to working with for a number of years. She’s also very personable and pretty.

Shock. Confusion. But you’re so nice. Seriously, you don’t have children? (Implied thought – so, what’s wrong with you??) Culturally it seems to be confusing when I say I have dogs.  But, in all seriousness, we’ve been busy. I’m early 30s, as is another of my colleagues. Some of our clients are just a few years older and have teenagers. We have law degrees and careers. Next time someone asks about my kids, I’m going to start rocking my law degree. Maybe I’ll pair it with the licenses I have from two states. I have triplets.

This is not to be critical of women who choose to be mothers. Choice is what is important. I am actively making mine right now. This to me is why I identify as pro choice. No one else should be able to make decisions about my body. I love a good squishy baby, and a fun toddler giggle makes me smile. I love being an aunty, and I am thrilled for each of the new humans my friends bring to this world. I also love beer, traveling, and my career.

Get over yourself and go to therapy, or is it go to therapy and get over yourself?

Venting

In my head, I consider myself a relatively egalitarian sort of person. I’m happy to give every body the chance to prove they’re interesting to me. Everyone IS interesting within their own little niche of the world, but I can’t inhabit every niche. Taking my cue from a quote that I’ve seen attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt (I don’t know if I’ve seen accurate attributions) small minds discuss people, average minds discuss events, and great minds discuss ideas. I’m an idea person. People who think and have ideas and are willing to methodically examine the idea’s merit in light of demonstrable fact are soul-sexy. 

In spite of that I work in a field that, while self-conceptualized as an idea industry, takes status very seriously. Most of the preoccupation with status are the basic dominance games that are perpetuated across many species and cultures, but played out by the proxies of where you went to school, graduated in the class, how much money you are able and willing to part with, or who you’re related to. I went to the wrong school, only graduated in the top quarter, have no money, and as far as I know I am not related to anyone of consequence. I also can’t speak the language that will elevate me above those miserable proxies.

I’ve hit a wall within my soul, and my career trajectory, and now I face the question, should I stay or should I go? Either way, I, and the people I work with need to get over ourselves and get back to the ideas that can make this world a better place instead of pointless posturing in an increasingly isolated and rarefied corner of the world.

Travel never goes according to plan

Venting

It’s taken a while for me to decide I’m ready to write about this experience, but I went and interviewed for that job in a bigger city with the exorbitant cost of living. And then in was time to come home. Now the interview went well and it didn’t go well all at the same time. I met lovely people and heard about some exciting opportunities, but in the end the prospect of relocation and long distance marriage meant I was not capable of putting my best self forward. (My ability to compartmentalize my emotional life from my public life is adequate, but not stellar). In the end they gave the job to the other finalist and I think they made the right decision.

But this post isn’t about self-sabotage originating at the subconscious level, rather it’s about air travel NEVER going according to plan.

After the interview a car service took me immediately to the airport to wait for 3 hours for my domestic flight. But weather delays meant I waited for six hours and missed my connection. I got to my connecting city and there were no more flights to my home city, and all routes with an additional connection were booked. The airline gave me a coupon for “reasonably priced” accommodations that I got to pay for out of my own pocket.

I now know what bedbugs look like thanks to that reasonably priced accommodation. And three months later my bank account still hasn’t recovered from so many airport meals. Travel just never goes according to plan and I’m scheduled to travel twice at the end of this month. Heaven help me…

The difficulties of honest communication between adult children and parents

Venting

I’ve applied for a job. It’d be a pay raise. It’d also be a promotion. And relocating to a city who’s cost of living is nearly three times my current city’s. And living apart from my husband for at least a year. But I haven’t been offered the job yet, rather I’m just working the process to see if they’re going to make an offer that makes it worth taking that path.

I chat with my mother by text rather frequently. Today she’s trying to coach me into thinking about big picture life things like babies. By text. And she’s sharing that she has no regrets from turning down jobs and choosing to be a SAHM for me. Because the economic situation she and my father were in is close to the situation my husband and I are in, so her choices should reassure me that it’s all going to work out if I exit the workforce or stay in my current job where there is no reasonably foreseeable possibility of promotion, pay raise, or even COLA.

I know that at some point my parents debt load exceeded $300,000. And they managed to put my brother through college and raise me. But most of their debt was mortgage. And the house was worth about three times my dad’s annual salary at the time they purchased the house. So within the conventional wisdom of managing finances.

My student loan debt alone is over $300,000. (Yes, I had scholarships, but it still turned out that high). I think there might’ve been an oops as the loans got shuttles from servicer to servicer, but I didn’t keep enough documentation to be able to prove that. And I can’t afford to hire a professional who knows how to track that stuff down and get it fixed. Then there is the credit card debt and the mortgage and the car payment. Plus my husband’s debt for his education. And my husband doesn’t make as much as my dad did. So, the end result is my mom has talked me out of having babies because there is absolutely no way I can afford them.

It’s hard to share the immensity of the problem in the first place. But even when I do, having to listen to experiences that completely fail to acknowledge the fundamental differences of our situations makes me cranky. But at the same time, I’m not sure I could handle a tough love of approach where she tells me I’ve made my bed and now I’ve got to sleep in it.