Emptiness and Paths Ahead

I completed my doctorate in June 2010. It is now June 2015. Five year after earning the doctorate, there's little to show for it.

I have taught, but at my last post I was not on the tenure track and that is unlikely now. I might be a lecturer or adjunct here and there, but that's not the career I imagined. It's also not the path my wife had imagined, and certainly not the path that we went into debt for, yet again.

Yes, I've applied for teaching jobs. No, I don't really want them, but teaching is the only thing I seem to be able to do, in part because of the schedule. Unfortunately, my degree choices weren't the wisest. The doctorate was an accomplishment, but to what end I don't know anymore.

My wife needs stability. She likes routines and order as much as I do. We both hate any reminders that we are powerless. We organize our spaces, because that is something we can do. Unfortunately, we can organize books and things, but not my career.

We won't know for some months if I have another teaching job. I (might) need the job. I dread the job. It comes too late to transform our lives into what I dreamed of for her and for me.

We have a decent life, but it feels incredibly incomplete. Empty. And I don't have a good path forward right now. A path, but nothing certain and nothing stable. The lack of certainty and stability… that familiar dread that we have no security.

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