One year out
2011 was sort of an odd year for me.
On the one hand, it's hard to complain about having this particular first year out of grad school. I published a lot - I can tell because I cannot tell you off the top of my head just how much I published this year. Among them was "Valhal-Mart," over at Killing the Buddha, which, I suppose because it was timely, blew up in a way I never expected. I mean, USA Today's religion blog mentioned me (if, I suppose, in an exaggerated way.) And truth be told, I imagine that much of what happened to me the rest of the year was directly the result of that column; KtB put me on staff as a contributing editor, which is a great honor, and I started writing my column for Patheos, which has been fun (and occasionally frustrating, but that's part of the fun.) Not bad for a story I wrote in one sitting on a lazy Saturday.
(I still don't know what to make of that essay, by the way. It seems like very few people read it in the way I expected - as a humorous piece that turns philosophical at the end. The people who read it as essentially me whining about the Thor movie all seemed to me to have been reading a different essay. Either I didn't make my message clear enough, or a lot of people were viewing "Valhal-Mart" through a different reality tunnel. Probably both.)
I also was on the shortlist for the Faulkner-Wisdom Novella Award, which was a pleasant surprise, even if I didn't win.
On a personal level, though, 2011 was perhaps the most frustrating year of my life. I guess that's not too unusual for a person's first year as a real adult. My world shattered in April when UMKC denied my application to their PhD program. Honest statement: I cried for a day and a half. It physically hurt to read that letter, because it meant that my entire life plan had become derailed. No matter what happened, I wasn't going to be getting a PhD by the time I was 30. (At this point, who knows if I will ever get one at all.) I had put all my chips on that one school - obviously a mistake in retrospect, but at the time, I felt I had been more or less guaranteed acceptance and thought it was safe - and I had lost the bet.
I went back to work at Sprint in January, and for those first few months there, I felt content in the knowledge that I would only be there for a few months before going back into academia. And then I didn't. I spent the rest of the year submitting my resume to anywhere I could. And I got a total of three interviews out of the process. Straight A student with a masters degree (if an MFA) at 25, with a resume full of teaching positions? Nothing to be done for it.
I suppose I've been lucky to have a job at all, even one where I had to work awful hours with no benefits. But the job was also a shackle. I couldn't afford to move back to St. Louis, much less Champaign, and just hope I would find a decent job. So I stayed in Kansas City. It was like being underwater in a house, even though I didn't own a house. I was stuck.
"Stuck" is the the word I fear most in our language. The greatest fear I've had in my life is being stuck. And in 2011, I'm afraid that is the word I'd have to use to describe myself. I felt this cognitive dissonance about my life throughout 2011: it was as though I had this magical fantasy life where I was a Young Pagan Writer and I had Wonderful Colleagues and Spirited Discussions and a Bright Future Ahead Of Me. And then I'd find myself back in my cubicle, where the only time my writing ever came up was when a new contractor found out about my MFA and asked me, "what are you doing here?"
I had no reason to go on campus. I stopped being able to make my Ravenloft game. The Yellow Emperors broke up. And yet despite all those ties I had built up evaporating, I was stuck in Kansas City.
And most of all, I was stuck eight hours away from the woman I loved. It was better than when she lived in Kazakhstan, but don't think that meant it didn't hurt.
So that was 2011 to me: the year of parallel universes. Like I was two separate people, one of whom was ecstatic and optimistic about his future, and one who felt like a failure pretty much constantly.
2012 looks like it will be much better, though. I've learned not to depend too much on sure bets, but it seems like a pretty sure bet that sometime this week, I will get a call telling me when I can move back to my hometown. My new job still won't be what I'd planned for, but I guess most people my age are telling that same story. But I will be fairly financially secure. And I will much closer to Megan.
I have a new car, (probably) a new job, and a new novel. I think 2012 is going to be fine.
On the one hand, it's hard to complain about having this particular first year out of grad school. I published a lot - I can tell because I cannot tell you off the top of my head just how much I published this year. Among them was "Valhal-Mart," over at Killing the Buddha, which, I suppose because it was timely, blew up in a way I never expected. I mean, USA Today's religion blog mentioned me (if, I suppose, in an exaggerated way.) And truth be told, I imagine that much of what happened to me the rest of the year was directly the result of that column; KtB put me on staff as a contributing editor, which is a great honor, and I started writing my column for Patheos, which has been fun (and occasionally frustrating, but that's part of the fun.) Not bad for a story I wrote in one sitting on a lazy Saturday.
(I still don't know what to make of that essay, by the way. It seems like very few people read it in the way I expected - as a humorous piece that turns philosophical at the end. The people who read it as essentially me whining about the Thor movie all seemed to me to have been reading a different essay. Either I didn't make my message clear enough, or a lot of people were viewing "Valhal-Mart" through a different reality tunnel. Probably both.)
I also was on the shortlist for the Faulkner-Wisdom Novella Award, which was a pleasant surprise, even if I didn't win.
On a personal level, though, 2011 was perhaps the most frustrating year of my life. I guess that's not too unusual for a person's first year as a real adult. My world shattered in April when UMKC denied my application to their PhD program. Honest statement: I cried for a day and a half. It physically hurt to read that letter, because it meant that my entire life plan had become derailed. No matter what happened, I wasn't going to be getting a PhD by the time I was 30. (At this point, who knows if I will ever get one at all.) I had put all my chips on that one school - obviously a mistake in retrospect, but at the time, I felt I had been more or less guaranteed acceptance and thought it was safe - and I had lost the bet.
I went back to work at Sprint in January, and for those first few months there, I felt content in the knowledge that I would only be there for a few months before going back into academia. And then I didn't. I spent the rest of the year submitting my resume to anywhere I could. And I got a total of three interviews out of the process. Straight A student with a masters degree (if an MFA) at 25, with a resume full of teaching positions? Nothing to be done for it.
I suppose I've been lucky to have a job at all, even one where I had to work awful hours with no benefits. But the job was also a shackle. I couldn't afford to move back to St. Louis, much less Champaign, and just hope I would find a decent job. So I stayed in Kansas City. It was like being underwater in a house, even though I didn't own a house. I was stuck.
"Stuck" is the the word I fear most in our language. The greatest fear I've had in my life is being stuck. And in 2011, I'm afraid that is the word I'd have to use to describe myself. I felt this cognitive dissonance about my life throughout 2011: it was as though I had this magical fantasy life where I was a Young Pagan Writer and I had Wonderful Colleagues and Spirited Discussions and a Bright Future Ahead Of Me. And then I'd find myself back in my cubicle, where the only time my writing ever came up was when a new contractor found out about my MFA and asked me, "what are you doing here?"
I had no reason to go on campus. I stopped being able to make my Ravenloft game. The Yellow Emperors broke up. And yet despite all those ties I had built up evaporating, I was stuck in Kansas City.
And most of all, I was stuck eight hours away from the woman I loved. It was better than when she lived in Kazakhstan, but don't think that meant it didn't hurt.
So that was 2011 to me: the year of parallel universes. Like I was two separate people, one of whom was ecstatic and optimistic about his future, and one who felt like a failure pretty much constantly.
2012 looks like it will be much better, though. I've learned not to depend too much on sure bets, but it seems like a pretty sure bet that sometime this week, I will get a call telling me when I can move back to my hometown. My new job still won't be what I'd planned for, but I guess most people my age are telling that same story. But I will be fairly financially secure. And I will much closer to Megan.
I have a new car, (probably) a new job, and a new novel. I think 2012 is going to be fine.