derailed careers and getting back on track

Had my life gone according to plan, I would be tenured by now.  Had my life gone according to plan, my vita would be a good page longer than it is now.

Life didn’t.  I’m not.  It isn’t.

I wish that more people talked openly about the process of picking up the pieces and putting a career back on track.   I have the feeling I am supposed to forever hide in the shadows.  I refuse to do that anymore.  I refuse to continue to be defined by my past.  This post is about shutting the door on what might have been and turning toward what may yet be.

To many academics, I am clearly a failure.  After all, I started at a research university with great promise but eight years later I am teaching a very small regional campus in a state system.  As for publications, I was far more productive during and immediately after graduate school than I have been in the last 4 years.   Many would ask “what happened? “

Not that it really matters but the spiral started with life happening combined with a toxic department chair and my own  personality which was based on being a pleaser.

I allowed the challenges to escalate by:  (1) worrying too much about how I was disappointing specific people, (2) losing my confidence and my focus, and (3) trying to overcompensate in ways that made things worse.  Ultimately this cost me my first tenure track job before I even went up for tenure.

I managed to find a new tenure track job.  However, the job was not a particularly good one but as they say “any port in a storm.”  At this point I am 5 years post Ph.D. The first year at the new position involved two more surgeries and trying to settle into a new state.  By that time I had lost both continuity and structure in my life.  By the time that I finished my first year at Univ. #2, I had taught 16 different preps (only three of which were even loosely connected to my research area). I was teaching 4/5 load and serving as graduate director.    As a result I became too much of a generalist and lost all momentum with regard to research and publishing.

My second year at Univ. #2, the advertisement for my current position at Univ. #3 was sent to me by a friend/mentor.  It had been a bad day.  I hated living in a town centered around a large military base. Univ. #3 is in an area where I wanted to live.  I figured what the heck.   To make a long story short: They liked me.  I liked them.  Here I am.

The move to this area brought to a close a wildly tumultuous period in my personal life.  To recap: between April 2003 and May 2006 there were 4 surgeries, losing a tenure track job, losing the possibility of motherhood being part of my life, a national search for a new job, and two interstate moves made alone. By this point I was defining myself as a failure and unable to focus on the future because I was focusing on the shortcomings in my past.

I would love to say that once I arrived at charming home in the cornfields, the chaos dissipated.  It didn’t.  In my first year at my current position we have been through 5 department chairs (regular/acting/interim), 3 deans (2 interim and now a regular Dean), 2 vice-chancellors for academic affairs, 5 searches within the department where I teach, and I have prepped three more new courses.  Still my time here has been a time for healing both physically and emotionally.

In the last 72 hours or so I have come to realize that I am starting a new chapter in my life.  Without realizing that I needed to, I have suddenly forgiven myself for my failures (real and imagined).   Oddly, I have no idea why this shift in consciousness.  Frankly, why it happened is not important.  That it has happened is an amazing feeling.  In addition, to feeling as if a giant weight has been lifted from my shoulders, I can look at the past 5 years and see what went wrong.  Being able to see the past more clearly means that I can learn from it and I can move forward.

I may never achieve the success I was expected to have.  I may never regain the respect some whose opinions I value.  What I can do is stop defining myself by what I haven’t accomplished in the past and focus my energy on moving forward from where I am now.  This is exactly what I intend to do.

I know the process won’t be fast.  4/4 teaching loads don’t lend themselves to churning out publications quickly — at least not the kind of publications on which I want my name.  Still I can focus on slow and steady progress toward realistic goals that are important to me.  I can be sure that the projects on which I spend my time and energy are those that can move me toward those goals.

More importantly, I can stop measuring my progress by where I thought I would be by now.  Instead I can measure my future progress from where I am starting from right now.

Most importantly, I can will stop hiding in the shadows in shame.

Tags: academia, academic life, careers, failure, new beginnings