Not a happy time
So I realize the past year or so of entries in this journal have been overwhelmingly positive, which may annoy those of you who read them. (After all, nothing makes people more bored or resentful than other people's happiness.) Well, today, I have to report that things are not too happy in my life right now. (So enjoy.)
David is in Rwanda for ~3 weeks consulting with doctors in cooperation with Partner in Health. I'm actually happy he's gone because I need some time to work on me, without him hovering around in my life.
I'm still unemployed and my experiences of late in trying to get a job have been very de-motivational. My former boss has, superficially, been trying to guide me, but, in actuality, has been sabotaging my efforts. He's critical and demanding of me and has not at all been compassionate to my plight. He hasn't once lifted his finger to set up an interview for me with someone who could really help me. (I think he has latent homophobia, and I know he has an overt resentment of Harvard and of all the people it has ever produced.) Unfortunately, because he's Director of Development at the monastery (note: he, himself, is not a monk), I feel awkward going there for religious services, as I'll run into him. I don't know if he's ever given me a bad recommendation, but I think I may remove him from my list of references because I feel really uncomfortable and judged when I'm around him.
Partly because of him, I don't know if I even want to go into Development now. Another mitigating factor is the job market here: I recently went to a Harvard networking event--gotta use those Ivy League connections!-- and found out that the Boston area is flooded with people wanting to work in this field. One woman who was a Director of Development for a non-profit working with animal rights in the Boston area told me that she recently received 200 applicants, over half of which had a masters-level degree, for a low-level position that she was advertising.
The difficult job market plus the negative "assistance" I have been getting have made me really want to leave the Boston area and strike out in a different field somewhere else; unfortunately, David has just signed a contract to work in.... Boston!! *tada!* Actually, he's working in downtown Cambridge; regardless, for the next 2.5 years, we're guaranteed to be in Boston. These past couple of weeks, when we had long (actually, night-long) discussions of which of his offers he should take, I strongly encouraged him to sign with a company in NYC. However, no matter what I said, he believed that I was engaged in some sort of reverse psychology, trying to suppress my own desires to give him what he really wanted (which was the job in NYC). His belief was well grounded: I have always proclaimed how much I hate NYC (and I do) and how much I love New England and Boston in particular (and I do) to the point that he had already made up his mind that I would be better off if we stayed in Boston before ever discussing the options with me around New Years. Unfortunately, it was around New Years that I began to have this monumental shift in belief: I am no longer feeling any professional future in this city, and am beginning to feel beaten down and defeated here. I would really want a fresh start somewhere else, even if that would mean moving to Manhattan of all places. But David didn't buy it.
***Sidebar: When confronted with a option of doing two different things, David and I have a long history of concealing our own preferences to advance what we believe is the other's preference. It has, on more than one occasion, gotten us to choose doing something that neither of us really wanted to do. I fear that it has happened again, as I know that, deep down, he does not want to remain in Boston. (He said that, if I were not in his life, he would take the NYC offer.)
***Another sidebar: When I went home for Christmas, I heard from my mom that she had quit her job of 20 years. She was an orthodontist's assistant, and she didn't like the doctor for whom she was working. She quit, during a recession, in her 50's, without having a new job to go into. After a while, she was fed up with her job search, and she realized that, after all of these years, what she really hated was working with the public and that she didn't really want to continue in the field of dentistry at all. By the grace of God, she got an unsolicited offer to work in a dental lab where she would be making dental retainers and bite-plates and such. It's the perfect job for her: She gets well paid doing something she actually does love about dentistry, and she never has to engage with the public. She says that she goes in with an iPod and listens to music all day while she works; she doesn't have to get dressed up, and she doesn't even have to talk to her co-workers.
I realized that, deep down, I'm just like her. I hate working with people and would rather close myself off and work all day on something I really loved without distraction. Thus Development is probably not the industry for me. It involves constantly selling yourself and your organization to other people, and it is all about the maintenance of relationships. I do not maintain relationships. With the exception of a few people (literally less than 5), I generally let friendships die and wither away. And I'm not really very close friends with those less-than-5 people, either. So who am I to go into an industry that requires you to build networks of hundreds of people whom you must contact on a regular basis?
Anyway, I stuck in Boston with little professional hope and a partner who secretly doesn't want to be here as much I don't want to be here. What's more, I'm losing a connection with a cherished religious home (i.e., the monastery). My relationship with David is rocky right now because there's a lot of unspoken, half-unrecognized resentment boiling under the surface. I'm relying on him for everything, and it's not good for either of us.
The future *will* be somewhat rosier come this summer when David starts making oodles of money, but even that won't take away this building malaise.
*sigh*
~Peace~
David is in Rwanda for ~3 weeks consulting with doctors in cooperation with Partner in Health. I'm actually happy he's gone because I need some time to work on me, without him hovering around in my life.
I'm still unemployed and my experiences of late in trying to get a job have been very de-motivational. My former boss has, superficially, been trying to guide me, but, in actuality, has been sabotaging my efforts. He's critical and demanding of me and has not at all been compassionate to my plight. He hasn't once lifted his finger to set up an interview for me with someone who could really help me. (I think he has latent homophobia, and I know he has an overt resentment of Harvard and of all the people it has ever produced.) Unfortunately, because he's Director of Development at the monastery (note: he, himself, is not a monk), I feel awkward going there for religious services, as I'll run into him. I don't know if he's ever given me a bad recommendation, but I think I may remove him from my list of references because I feel really uncomfortable and judged when I'm around him.
Partly because of him, I don't know if I even want to go into Development now. Another mitigating factor is the job market here: I recently went to a Harvard networking event--gotta use those Ivy League connections!-- and found out that the Boston area is flooded with people wanting to work in this field. One woman who was a Director of Development for a non-profit working with animal rights in the Boston area told me that she recently received 200 applicants, over half of which had a masters-level degree, for a low-level position that she was advertising.
The difficult job market plus the negative "assistance" I have been getting have made me really want to leave the Boston area and strike out in a different field somewhere else; unfortunately, David has just signed a contract to work in.... Boston!! *tada!* Actually, he's working in downtown Cambridge; regardless, for the next 2.5 years, we're guaranteed to be in Boston. These past couple of weeks, when we had long (actually, night-long) discussions of which of his offers he should take, I strongly encouraged him to sign with a company in NYC. However, no matter what I said, he believed that I was engaged in some sort of reverse psychology, trying to suppress my own desires to give him what he really wanted (which was the job in NYC). His belief was well grounded: I have always proclaimed how much I hate NYC (and I do) and how much I love New England and Boston in particular (and I do) to the point that he had already made up his mind that I would be better off if we stayed in Boston before ever discussing the options with me around New Years. Unfortunately, it was around New Years that I began to have this monumental shift in belief: I am no longer feeling any professional future in this city, and am beginning to feel beaten down and defeated here. I would really want a fresh start somewhere else, even if that would mean moving to Manhattan of all places. But David didn't buy it.
***Sidebar: When confronted with a option of doing two different things, David and I have a long history of concealing our own preferences to advance what we believe is the other's preference. It has, on more than one occasion, gotten us to choose doing something that neither of us really wanted to do. I fear that it has happened again, as I know that, deep down, he does not want to remain in Boston. (He said that, if I were not in his life, he would take the NYC offer.)
***Another sidebar: When I went home for Christmas, I heard from my mom that she had quit her job of 20 years. She was an orthodontist's assistant, and she didn't like the doctor for whom she was working. She quit, during a recession, in her 50's, without having a new job to go into. After a while, she was fed up with her job search, and she realized that, after all of these years, what she really hated was working with the public and that she didn't really want to continue in the field of dentistry at all. By the grace of God, she got an unsolicited offer to work in a dental lab where she would be making dental retainers and bite-plates and such. It's the perfect job for her: She gets well paid doing something she actually does love about dentistry, and she never has to engage with the public. She says that she goes in with an iPod and listens to music all day while she works; she doesn't have to get dressed up, and she doesn't even have to talk to her co-workers.
I realized that, deep down, I'm just like her. I hate working with people and would rather close myself off and work all day on something I really loved without distraction. Thus Development is probably not the industry for me. It involves constantly selling yourself and your organization to other people, and it is all about the maintenance of relationships. I do not maintain relationships. With the exception of a few people (literally less than 5), I generally let friendships die and wither away. And I'm not really very close friends with those less-than-5 people, either. So who am I to go into an industry that requires you to build networks of hundreds of people whom you must contact on a regular basis?
Anyway, I stuck in Boston with little professional hope and a partner who secretly doesn't want to be here as much I don't want to be here. What's more, I'm losing a connection with a cherished religious home (i.e., the monastery). My relationship with David is rocky right now because there's a lot of unspoken, half-unrecognized resentment boiling under the surface. I'm relying on him for everything, and it's not good for either of us.
The future *will* be somewhat rosier come this summer when David starts making oodles of money, but even that won't take away this building malaise.
*sigh*
~Peace~