What am I doing here?

A random assortment of manuscripts, projects, half starts and stops, crazy ideas, half-ass data, and intentions for the future. That is my professional life right now.

I thought that maybe if I were to get a faculty position, I would feel more dug-in, more settled, more focused, but now I doubt my ability to get a position, and even whether I am cut-out for academia at all. What I really want is to go home and resume my old life.

Why did I come here? It is still pretty clear. I came because I was offered the position, and it wasn't just any position. It was at the top University, with a department that is packed with leaders in my field, to work with a big name, who I know and like personally, in a dynamic and unique city. There was no way I could have turned that down.

But now, more than a year later, I realise that the dynamism of the city is lost on me as I only ever spend time at work. As for the advisor, department and Uni, it's still all there, looking very nice on my CV, but I have very little in the way of projects to show for it. Preparing for conferences that I have attended for the past few years, I also realise how far my research has strayed from the things that I am passionate about. I have nothing to present at these conferences.

How do I find a way, other than getting a faculty job and starting my own lab, to resume my old research?

Long-list

Why do the perfect jobs always seem like they were invented by the writers of Twilight Zone? The old, black & white, Twilight Zone.

Here is the job of your dreams – except the building you would work in smells really bad.
Here is the job of your dreams – except you would have to give up good coffee.
Here is the job of your dreams – except it is the furthest possible distance on the planet from everything you value in your life.

So, I made a long-list. They asked for reference letters. Someone, a group of people actually, found me and my research interesting enough to ask for reference letters.

Huh.

I still find it weird, but I’m oddly okay with it. In fact, I’ve made a break-through on my research (life). I have a direction, and a vision, and I think I’m ready to implement it. I’m ready to have my own lab. I know the equipment I need. I have several projects for students to start on, and for me to write grants on. I once again (Hallelujah) know what I want! It only took one year, to get back on track. Oh, it’s about time! I’m abandoning my advisor's projects, and going rogue. It’s the only way. It’s the only thing I’ve ever done which has made me any progress in life; in fact, I don’t know why I even attempt to work with other people anymore, or see things any other way than my own. (insert Sinatra soundtrack here).
Done.
I’m back.

Summer mania

Summer I get manic. I don’t eat; I don’t sleep; I talk incessantly; I have crazy ideas, and generally and sometimes literally run around in circles. This week though, I have finally been able to feel like I have a purpose in life. I am in the field, working on the project that I’m getting no data from. But it’s good. I get up early, I eat whatever I want without feeling guilty, I carry lots of heavy stuff, dig around in the bush and get dirty, then carry lots more heavy stuff out again. What can I say. It gives me something other than my pathetic existence to focus on for a while. And while I am here, I can ask myself the seemingly never tiring question of ‘how did I get here?’

I, of course, mean physically (geographically) as well as mentally. I am constantly amazed at where my life takes me and the array of highly contrasting experiences I have. I have a crazy life.

Awhile back I went on a trip to a conference with some lab-mates. We drove for hours upon hours. We told our life stories to each other. I skipped over most parts and just gave the highlights, but I realise that I’ve lead a very different life from most people (in academia anyway). Under-stated though, I think. But only because it’s complicated, and I don’t like to discuss too much of it. It's definitely an accumulation of events that have lead to this kind of crazy. I think the others in the car were a little reflective after that. I was told my story was “balls to the wall”. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but it sounds painful.

Life goes on

Postdoc’ing is an emotional rollercoaster, like no other, I swear.
• Upswing – received major grant to continue research project for two more years
• Downswing – doing said research project means I live thousands of kilometres from family and friends
• Upswing – about to submit a Nature paper
• Downswing – said Nature paper and 4 other manuscripts have been in prep for 9 months because co-authors can’t agree
• Upswing – I get to keep my apartment
• Downswing – only get to keep said apartment until December when I’ll have to move in the snow (not that I own furniture I’ll have to worry about)
• Upswing – I get to go on a road trip to a fun conference all expenses paid
• Downswing – I hate my presentation, and so does everyone in my lab (they said so)
• Upswing – two more jobs are available for me to apply for
• Downswing – I didn’t get the job I really wanted for some pretty crappy internal hiring reasons
• Upswing – cat, left with parents, is still alive
• Downswing – said parents are dying
And life goes on…

Life as a singleton

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.