Have fun out there in the wilderness, loners

The other day, a former colleague of mine stopped by the office to say hello. Her son had been accepted to Harvard the week before and we all chatted happily with her, congratulating his accomplishment. I’d tutored the boy a few years earlier when he’d been stuck in the hospital, receiving chemotherapy for leukemia. Those sessions had always stuck with me; I remember how rattled I felt walking around the pediatric oncology unit, looking at the sick kids and frightened parents. It struck me as the worst thing that could happen to a person.

Apparently I was wrong. She said that applying her son to college and waiting to hear from Harvard had been harder than helping him recover from leukemia. “At least with cancer you have something you can fight against and smart doctors who tell you what to do. With college, your whole life is in the hands of idiots.”

I wanted to punch her. I know it was a flippant remark and probably not really indicative of how she feels – the stress of waiting for the acceptance still fresh in her memory. But I honestly couldn’t think of any statement I’d heard in a long time that so crystallized everything that’s wrong with this high-pressure, fast-paced part of the world I’ve been living and working in for the last 8 years. No matter what, you should want your child to live more than you should want him to get into Harvard.

Jokingly, I told her what a friend of ours had told my husband when he got his current, fancy-sounding job. I told her she had to help him “keep it real.” Forget that, she laughed! “I say get a few gentleman’s C’s and you’ll be set for life.” Um. Ok. I guess if anyone deserves to have a good time in college and not worry about grades, it’s probably this kid. But still… way to miss the point mom.

My husband and I are in the process of *seriously* considering moving. His fancy-sounding job has gone well but he’s had to work in an environment of egomaniacal, status-obsessed colleagues who are frankly anything but collegial. They don’t share. They don't say hello. They’re resistant to change in a way that makes me think that the word hidebound was coined here. My husband tends to do pretty cutting-edge stuff and while they’d like to keep him around as a curiosity, they’re not sure they want any more like him – so forget about any institution-level infrastructure or support. Have fun out there in the wilderness, loner.

My job has been both wonderful and terrible in ways that I still try to wrap my head around on a daily basis. Imagine a rich and stimulating environment where you get to help exactly the population of clients you enjoy working with while simultaneously having access to amazing on-the-job training and resources. A job where you get to bring your dog and there’s a chef who comes twice a week to make staff lunch and you get to really help people. And then imagine that there is absolutely no ability for advancement and no matter how much you learn, you will always be just an employee and take home 25% of what they bill for your time.

And all of this would be fine I guess, if we had some kind of rich life or community outside of work but nope. Middle-aged people do NOT socialize with a childless adult couple. I joined the board of a non-profit in town to meet people and that’s been a moderate success but all the people I’ve met have been well-meaning seniors or people my own age who don’t have time to socialize because… they have kids. We’ve met some people through my husband’s job but they don’t have time to socialize because… they have kids. And the people at my office are all generally younger or… well, they have kids. As for old friends – that hasn’t panned out either. One friend regularly visits her brother who lives a mile from my office but we haven’t seen each other in years. (I know, she’s busy. She has kids.) One friend lives 2 hours away and we’ve visited twice. I do have one high school friend who doesn’t have kids and lives nearby and that’s been great – but she’s one person. And my best friend… well, let’s just say I texted her last week to say Happy Easter and I’ve yet to hear back. Her hands aren’t just full, they’re overflowing: dying wife, problems at work, sick kids. Not her fault.

It’s no one’s FAULT. We’re just isolated. We live in a rural area and don’t have a religion or kids so this is what we get. I thought maybe my parents would come visit (albeit a mixed blessing) since they have friends in the area, but my mom comes for about 36 hours every 18 months when there's a Garden Club meeting nearby. Right now they're in Dubai. Good for them. But it just can’t be like this forever. I mean, there are only so many films on Netflix left that we haven’t watched. So we’re seriously thinking about moving. I’d miss our pretty house in its beautiful setting. I’d miss sitting on the porch on summer evenings and watching the birds play in the long grass of the marsh, smelling the salt breeze and waiting for the lightning bugs to emerge. 

But the rest... I'm not sure anyone would notice or care that we'd gone.