Regret

I've decided not to apply for the Boston Conservatory position. To be realistic, if I were teaching part time and working full-time, my plate would just be a little bit too full. My enthusiasm for the position, though, was itself exciting; it counteracted the regret I felt for having embarked on a graduate school program -- and by extension, a life path -- that didn't work out. It was a chance to remember the value of that year, that degree, and the fact that my heart really was in the right place when decided to go to graduate school.

Regret is an emotion (I haven't thought of it as an emotion in the past, but I think it really is one) that I think I've only begun to realized recently; it's been five years since I graduated from college, and those have been the first years I wasn't accountable to my parents or teachers or professors for my decisions -- I was responsible only (or primarily, at least) to myself. Incidentally, I just read about an Amherst alum from the class of 2007 who was killed in a tragic biking accident and I found myself finding solace in the fact that before her death she had a whole year to be her adult self, and to do whatever it was that she really wanted to do.

In looking over that job description, I feel a longing for the teaching life, but also a reminder of the difficulties that so many English PhDs face, having to cobble together a career by combining poorly-paid adjunct positions at multiple universities -- a fact that became quite real to me only once I was in my program. I suppose I would be in competition with those people anyway, in applying for such a position. (Feed: teaching, nevertheless, will figure in somehow. I do think that's a good fit for me ;)

I recently had a conversation with an older friend, who impressed upon me that one's twenties are a time of struggle, of second-guessing oneself. There are more than a handful of major life decisions I've made in the last few year -- on geography, relationships, career aspirations -- my first time taking a crack at decisions of their magnitude, and ones that perhaps, knowing what I know now, I might now make differently.

I think that now, at 26 going on 27, that I've reached a mostly happy place where regret oughtn't to have a place; I guess being content in the present is the greatest antidote to regret over the past, and I am happy about my work in a way I don't think I ever would have been had I stayed the course in graduate school; I am excited, also, about the possibility of San Francisco, a decision that I feel quite confident about (there, it is in writing, for my future self!). It's funny, though, that I need reminders like that job post -- to assure me that I've done the right thing and that I'm headed in the right direction.