At the edge of 50, Chapter 1
Trying to make the Zoom class selfie a thing.
Hello, LJ! It is 2022, 12 years since I last blogged on LJ. My reasons for leaving back then (according to my last post) were valid back then (though after leaving LJ to stop venting about the misery in my life, I promptly went to Twitter and did exactly that, haha. I left Twitter for the same reason) and I'm back for reasons valid for now, namely:
1. I had this urge to tell the story of my life at present, because of a series of seemingly serendipitous events and circumstances that feel like something you would read out of a book, I kid you not,
2. Of all the social media platforms I'm on, I realize this is (for me) the best format for longform, and
3. One of those recent events that I want to talk about pinpoints Livejournal as one of the main reasons why said event happened in the first place, and it would have been disrespectful to go over on Blogger to do this haha.
So, let's set the opening scene. I have a new job, it's my first week there (think Sandra Oh in The Chair). My new officemates and staff are curious about me, as anyone would be curious about anything new. One of the things curious about me is I look too young for my position. I'm 48, which may be too young for some, or just right for others, I suppose it depends on your own career trajectory. I mean, I personally feel like I should have gotten the PhD five years ago (I haven't yet, btw, and it's all my own fault, I embrace it), but I think I wouldn't want this particular job if I had stayed in the last university I was teaching in. But I digress).
It's late afternoon and I'm trying to figure out schedules for next semester, tapping tenaciously on my iPad that's propped up on my desk while my staff are chit-chatting idly as office staff are wont towards the end of the day. They are curious about me, so I'm not surprised when they try to include me in the conversation. I gamely smile at them and make appropriate short responses here and there, then look back at my iPad. Tap tap tap.
So, there seems to be a typical profile for any career woman appointed to a position of authority: she is past a certain age. However, there is also a typical profile for any woman past a certain age: she has a husband and children. So of course my staff ask me about my husband and children. I smile and say, I have neither.
There is a wealth of emotions that flash through their eyes as they digest my reply. Confusion, shock, doubt, pity. To be 48 and be single and childless does seem pathetic at face value, I guess. The oldest of them tries to save the conversation by talking about her maiden aunts and how they seem happy. It seems that she is trying to reassure me. I smile at her. Tap tap tap.
I blithely tapped myself out of that conversation but I think it bothered me more than I wanted it to. A couple of days later, as I'm at the school clinic getting reexamined by the school physician, I get the magic married question again. The doctor looks at my file and has to ask me my age repeatedly, like something in my medical file and the way she was studying me did not compute. At first, I was quite sick for my age, until I told her I was 48 and then I was instead very healthy for my age. "But how old are you, again? Are you sure?" As if I spent years lost at sea or on another planet or hallucinated my 30s or something.
Finally, she decides being rude is better than being curious and asks me, "You're 48? Why aren't you married?" She knew I wasn't married because when she was teaching me how to do a self-breast exam, she was going to tell me how to do it with a husband until I told her I didn't have one.
She didn't look at me with pity, it was more out of curiosity. I like to think she thought I was a catch and how did I go through my young life without getting caught. I couldn't say that there weren't exactly a lot of guys trying to catch me, but these aren't things you tell the school doctor. Instead, I assure her that I don't get palpitations and don't think I need a 2D Echo for the blockage reported in my ECG results, otherwise the cardiologist I paid almost 2 grand to check this blockage would have said so.
That's another thing that sounds like a movie trope. I have a slow heartbeat. It's actually common in athletes and people who do heavy physical activity. Each time I check my resting heart rate, it's at 71-73 BPM. Is this related to my being not married at 48? No. But it's a plot twist waiting to happen.
The last time I was on LJ, I was heartbroken, I was in a job I didn't love, I was planning to go back and get my PhD. Within the last 12 years, I had become even more severely heartbroken (which probably largely contributes to why I'm not married, though honestly, I'm much better now, 8 years later), had a job I absolutely loved but needed a PhD to keep it, went home to do the PhD where I'm currently stuck in a pre-defense limbo, and recently took a new job while waiting. That pretty much covers the last 12 years, and yet it barely scratches the surface.
Which goes back to why I'm on LJ again. 48 may be too young to write a memoir, or maybe I'm trying instead to make sense of being a woman past a certain age in a position of authority without husband or children. It's not your typical mid-life crisis drama, is it? Maybe more like a coming of age, but for my age.
Thanks for coming to my show. Hope you can stay till the curtain comes down.
My second day on the new job, three weeks ago.