I’ve always thought making decisions was a pretty complex affair. I’ve always felt at odds with the amount of people around me who state their life options with confident flair: they seem to do that without ifs or buts, as if the years ahead of them came as a natural succession of their past or as a clear choice made of no other thing but absolute certainty.
For those who know me this might come as a surprise: when prodded with the latest hot topic doing the rounds of dinner-table conversations I can be pretty vocal and opinionated, to the point where two hours later I cringe with embarrassment, when recalling the expression on the faces of my friends as I pronounce some arrogant dogma about EU subsidies, the snotty coffee shop girl or bloody train ticket inspectors. Can I really be that much of a tosser? Well, no.
The reality is, when faced with decisions on my own life am I nothing short of a wuss. I am unable to see the horizon with clarity, and often hold on to my less optimistic and fearful side. Do I really want an academic career? What if I leave it, will I miss it? Why don’t I just throw myself into something completely different? Will my partner ever be able to communicate with my family? Is that important at all? Will I ever have children? At 32, do I really need to worry about growing old and rotten in a retirement home of a foreign country, without my cousins around me? (I’ve always imagined that being really old is like being a true child – not only you get your nappies changed but you get to hang around your teethless cousins cracking scatological jokes all day. That has to be the only advantage of living in those pre-death warehouses, I think).
Anyway, over the past two months I have been agonising at the professional and lifestyle options. I had given myself a deadline for this decision – by the end of summer I had to decide whether to stay in academia or not. I chose not to stay. My job was being re-advertised and I was happy for it to be grabbed by someone else. But as soon as that someone else came along, the doubt crept in. Had I made the right choice? Surely anyone would want to have a proper career – one with a structure, a peer group, solid pension plans and flexible working hours? I had given it up.
So the next stage of this twisted journey of decision begun. Slowly I started thinking of ways in which I could be part of academia without really being in it. I could apply to some research funding to my own project (a laborious process of fund raising), rather than being employed on someone else’s. I could wangle a few teaching hours (poorly paid and uncertain). Being miss complicated I now have to go around and actually work my butt off for this stuff to happen.
I hope I have made the right choice. I wanted more freedom, a project that I could call my own, some hours on the side to dedicate to other projects. Maybe a little business, some hobbie-like artsy stuff to keep my hands going (I was a very artsy teenager you know).
I am still not sure if it will all hang out together. It will take a few months before grant applications are considered, and the teaching hours are a semester away. So that leaves the Clô-McGregor household with one very sweet option – a dramatic lifestyle change. Guess where I am going to be for the next five months?