Friday, November 30, 2018

The Aftereffect

It was my dream job. I used to say that if I had done everything right all my life, I would have been incredibly lucky to get that job. But I've screwed up plenty, and somehow, still, I got that job.

Oh, god, it was my dream job, and every morning I got to take Route 66 to work and smile at the Sangre de Cristo mountains in front of me. Real mountains, with aspens green in the summer and yellow in the fall. Aspens with wizened white bark and round leaves whirling in the wind like spinning gold coins.

It was idyllic, really. I was home, settled in New Mexico forever, with my cute little Stamm house just a block from dozens of meetings a week, and close friends, and a full pension waiting for me just five years down the road. It was my best life writ large. And always when I was asked if I liked my job I would smile wide and say, "I LOVE my job!"

It was idyllic. Until it wasn't.

The mountains never lost their allure, and the golden leaves continued to spin. I still loved my little house and the people and the meetings. But I didn't love my job. Not anymore.

A change in management can do that. A change in management can also make bad jobs go away, sometimes at the most inconvenient times.

And that, dear reader, is how I came to pack up my car and leave behind the aspens and mountains to take an academic job across the country. Me, plus two chihuahuas and a cat, surrendering to upstate New York and the icy, unforgiving reality of lake effect snow.

How my heart aches for the mountains and the meetings and the people, and also for the simplicity of having a yard for the dogs and a life on the first floor.

I'm not crazy about the weather here, or the meetings. Hope of a pension is gone. My credit score has tanked. And I'm completely mystified by academia's relentless obsession with proper citation formatting.

But even here, in this time, in this strange place by the lake, there is bliss. Bliss in living behind the movie theater and smelling popcorn when I walk the dogs. Bliss at a lively downtown just two blocks away, complete with good food, good people, and three tattoo parlors. Bliss in the steady roar of the surf crashing onto the shore, and in the delicate curve of a wave just before it breaks. Bliss at the serenity of an empty laundromat before the sun rises. Bliss in knowing I can stay sober here, even if it's not according to plan.

And then there's the bliss of academic librarianship. The wonderful release from the airless, windowless chamber that was the law. I honestly didn't realize I was suffocating until, suddenly, I could breathe again. Here curiosity is nurtured and pondering is encouraged. Here are books with pictures, and we don't even have to sneak them in.

The bliss of being able to say, once more, that I love my job.

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