The last time I was in Arizona, I was talking to my mom about my upcoming graduation, and she asked me, "So, knowing what you know now, if you could go back in time would you do it all over again?"
The fact is that I regret getting a PhD, deeply. It makes other people uncomfortable when I say that, but it is what it is. If I could go back in time, I absolutely would have walked away from academia after my master's.And I would have got my master's in education, not literature. I have spent a lot of the last five years beating myself up for that. Idiot, you did this to yourself. If you HAD to do a PhD, why did you not accept U of A's offer? Why didn't you leave after your exams? Why didn't you get a more practical degree? Why? Why? Why?
But, here's the thing: I couldn't have known that I would feel this way when I made my decisions about grad school.
It's not like I wasn't forewarned. I had professors tell me that the jobs just weren't there. I even had a professor tell me that I should think about taking time off before the PhD because it would mean a lot of sacrifice. She said, it means living in poverty into your thirties. You are going to watch your friends buy houses, have kids if they want them, and build lives that you cannot afford. She said, you will have to commit to live anywhere to get that first job and work several temporary positions before you land the one that sticks. But twenty-three year old me thought that all sounded fine. I don't care about houses or savings or kids, I thought. Matt and I can live anywhere!
And then I moved to Gainesville for five years. Here's the thing, I shit on Gainesville a lot, but Gainesville is not a bad place to live. I could do a lot worse. And that's the problem. I quickly learned (surprise!) that I cannot live just anywhere and be happy.
And then I started to notice the logistical difficulties of the whole moving around with no money thing. Moving is expensive. We had to load up our credit cards to finance the move out here, and we were never able to get them back down, with Matt's student loan payments and me making 15k a year. When it became time to think about those temporary college teaching positions, I knew that we cannot afford it. I can't just keep moving around, building up debt, pursuing a dream job that I will likely never land.
There's also the added shittiness of living across the country from every one you know and love AND being too poor to afford to visit for the holidays, or when your loved ones fall ill or get in a serious car accident or have babies or get married. It began to feel like a sort of exile from everyone I cared about.
And then there's the whole issue of my decisions affecting another person. Matt very graciously moved out to Gainesville with me so we could do this thing, even though it meant working a retail job he didn't want to keep for years while he tried to find something, anything, that would use his education. If I decided to hop around the country pursuing the job I used to think I wanted, it would mean uprooting Matt every year or two to move to a new location.
And so, as graduation approaches, I now know that I am not equipped, mainly psychologically, to do the thing I thought I wanted to do with this degree because I just am not willing to continue to make these sacrifices. I spent the last five years being less happy than I could have been, and now I do not know what I will do next, and that kind of sucks. But, at least I know what I am not willing to sacrifice now, so that's one upside. If nothing else, I am leaving my PhD program really knowing myself. I've done so much self-reflection and reevaluation it's frankly ridiculous.
So, yes, I regret this degree, though I've loved the students and classes I have taught here. And, yes, I feel like a freak because I can't find the joy in completing the degree. But, I can realize that there was no way for me to know all of this five years ago, and I can try to have some grace for myself and forgive myself for choosing wrongly. I came here thinking I was Cristina Yang, someone who would pursue my dream job regardless of the personal sacrifices, but I'm not. I'm someone a little sappier, who misses my AZ friends and family too much to plan my next steps far away from them. I'm someone who wants a house, damn it, with a yard. I'm someone who wants work to be a much smaller part of my identity. And I am learning to be okay with that. I still, however, am someone who wants Sandra Oh's hair, because, come on.
P.S. Everyone should be watching Killing Eve
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