Closing the circle

On the anniversary of my first day of work at my publishing house, I resigned.

It wasn't an easy decision to come to. I love the people, and while my job is generally unchallenging, there are parts of it that I sincerely enjoy. I also loved being the chair of the social committee, and having a hand in seeing people come together in ways they hadn't before. But trying to do my job was having a negative impact on my life in so many ways; it was affecting my home life, my mental life, my intellectual life, my academic life, and my social life. I wasn't being fair to my husband, my professors, my students, my boss, or myself. It was time for a change.

As of November 3, I will no longer be employed outside of being a teaching assistant. I'm okay with that. Actually, more than okay. As I'm reading in my postmodernism research (amazing how life and school always end up conflating themselves), the language of capitalism, of marketing, which is what I was paid to work with on a daily basis, is fleeting, consumable, and insubstantial. This is completely at odds with the kind of language that I need to be working with in my academic life: the reading and writing that I should be doing (and wasn't) is engaged, substantial, and reflective. So aside from the time that my job took away from my academics, it took my thinking away, and I wasn't okay with that. I've taken lieu time so that I don' t have to work tomorrow or Thursday, and already, knowing that I have the luxury of time and quiet, my thinking and writing is improving. I sounded less like an idiot in my postmodernism class today that I have yet so far, and I'm starting to feel more like my old Dalhousie self. A much needed change.

I'm lucky to have a husband who is understanding; no one who I discussed this decision with, from him to my mom to my friends, were anything less than completely supportive, which made things much easier. I'm sad to disappoint my boss, and lose working with my sister every day, which I loved, but I know they understand.

So here's to closing the circle, and picking back up where I left off almost exactly a year ago: writing a killer SSHRC proposal, thinking and learning, enjoying what I'm doing, and looking forward to the future.