Going home is always a dangerous situation for a post-doc. For me, I was dreading it, knowing that I would see the life that I left behind, and everything and everyone I was missing. And, it happened. I came to THAT point. The point where I have to consider that I’ve made some horrible life choices and that I am nowhere where I want to be in my personal or professional life.
Now I don’t regret my life choices, and it is easy to blame the recession for lack of jobs, and I’m sure lots of funding applications get lost…but that aside, my career is stalling, and my personal life is hanging by a thread and causing upset in everyone’s life. There is the realisation and recognition that if I don’t make some changes very, very soon, I will never be able to go back. Now I don’t mean physically or geographically here, I mean mentally to a place that involves other people – real people – in my life. I have lived alone for so long. I have spent more than half my life making sacrifices for myself and no one else. Telling myself that everything would pay off in the long run, and that when it does I can focus on other things. But I’m realising that the things I’ve always done, the way I’ve always done them, has not paid off, and I am failing in life.
I live this life that is so quiet and self-absorbed. I like being alone more than I like being with people. But I also want a home and a community, and to be with my partner. And I realise that if I don’t start making sacrifices for someone else, there won’t be anybody else. And I’m not sure if I’m not okay with that.
