Friday, January 29, 2010

Hope vs. Reality

I've been doing some critical thinking lately and I'm really becoming terrified that I won't be able to find a job after graduation. This MFA was supposed to be the first move up the career ladder, but I'm afraid that it only let me live on borrowed time for three years. When I quit my job to come back to school in the summer of 2007, I only missed the corporate mass layoffs by a few months.  In that respect, grad school let me dodge a bullet by handing me a teaching job and a living wage. By the end of this May, I have a gut feeling that I'll be facing destitution. It weighs heavily on my mind because I've already been in this position before, having graduated with a bachelor's degree eight months after 9-11.  I worked part time in demeaning jobs for a couple of years before I got a chance to do freelance work, but, I was young then and felt like I had the rest of my life to become a professional.  Now, all I feel like is that time is closing in...
Logically, I know that new MFA grads are lucky to get a semester of adjunct work.  I know that I'm fooling myself, wasting time even, by applying to Associate Professor positions for which there will be hundreds, literally, hundreds of more-qualified applicants than myself.
My reality, at this point, is to return to my hometown and live rent-free with my grandma. I should be grateful for the opportunity considering the alternative, but all I can think of is, "Wow,  32 and living in a basement, jobless with no prospects for marriage or children in this decade.  Sweet!"
Maybe I'm looking at it from the wrong way. Maybe it'll be my big chance to be no-obligations, full time artist!  Maybe I can get a semester of work at my old community college and everything will have come around full-circle.
I know on a long enough timeline that things work out, but I don't know if I have the intestinal fortitude to weather the storm until then.
The sadness is setting in...

2 comments:

  1. what ever you do, I belive you will do well reguardless of the outside forces!
    jb

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  2. You can handle it. Hell, you know that I'm pretty much in the same situation, thought I'd be able to get in and out of here fast with a degree that'd make me employable. But since it didn't exactly work out that way, at least I'm working towards something new, albeit a lot slower than I'd like. I know you will, too.

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