I suppose I slept okay yesterday afternoon and last night. For the most part, anyway. I always feel as if I am playing catch-up when it comes to getting rest these days, and that's a feeling that's more than likely not going to go away for another few months until I can really get some true relaxation time after the move and after the wedding.
The thought is always in the back of my head that a month from today, I'll more than likely be mostly, or completely, moved out of this house. It's a feeling that, looking around and seeing everything where it is and where it has been for the past five years, makes me feel crushed and completely overwhelmed with stress. Again, I absolutely dread moving. I've always dreaded moving no matter how many times I've done it. It's always much harder than it looks or seems like it's going to be, it's always much more tiring and stressful, and it's always a task that is so terrible to me that I just have to put my head down and do it -- there's never any way out of it.
And it's so expensive.
I brought in one of the big boxes from the garage this morning so that I can keep packing throughout the day today. It will be filled quickly, I can tell you that. No matter how many boxes I have, it'll never seem like enough. I just feel dangerously, completely overwhelmed. I have so much -- so many things -- that I need to keep, but I don't know what to do with. I'm so tired. I can almost never get any real rest. I have a ton of grading and other student-oriented work to do. I have a ton of cleaning to do. I have tasks and responsibilities pulling at me from all angles, and all I want to do is curl up in a ball in bed with my blanket over my head and wish it all away, wish that everything would just stop, wish that I had an endless supply of money to just throw at all of my problems and make everyone else take care of them. The stress is crippling. It's terrifying. I don't like this feeling. It feels like I've been backed into a corner and I have no way out of being forced to do all of this work, spend all of this money I don't have, and I'm being told to do it with a gun to my head and a ticking clock in the corner with me. It never feels like I'm doing enough fast enough. I'm not sure I can accurately put into words the anxiety and panic I feel.
None of this has to do with the wedding, of course. It's more in the moving and the money and time and work involved, and the panic that comes from going into the unknown. I've done this before -- this will make the fourth time I have moved from one place to another without knowing what my future would hold in said place. All three previous times have been very stressful and I've been very poor and jobless once I've gotten to wherever I'm going. This time will be no exception. My lecturer contract with the university ends a month from today, basically. I'll only be paid three more times, at the most, before the wedding. I don't yet have a job in Omaha and probably won't until at least sometime in June. Once more I am flying blind into the jungle of uncertainty, into a situation where -- yes, while I'll have a wife and she has a good job -- I myself will again be thrown into financial chaos, thrown into the great unknown until I can proverbially "get back on my feet." Again, remember that I basically have no marketable skills except for teaching and writing. It's very, very tough to even get a phone call or an interview for any job I apply for that isn't an entry-level position or a retail position.
That being said, Daisy's company apparently does want me to work for them -- the HR guy emailed me twice over the past two weeks telling me to come to their hiring event/job fair thing up there this week. When I responded that I would love to except that I wasn't relocating to Omaha for more than another month, he replied to tell me to keep his info on file and contact him ASAP once I was settled in so that an interview could be scheduled.
None of the other applications I've filed -- for anything, anywhere -- have contacted me. All of them have HR websites, and every time I've logged in it says "application received." Only one of the jobs I've applied for says "applications currently being screened." They're either dragging their feet, or they're "dummy" positions posted on said HR sites for jobs they've already filled internally, to give the illusion that they're actually looking for someone outside the company/college/university when they're not.
Again, this is something I can't exactly stress about now. I have too many other pressing issues and tasks to worry about and take care of at the moment.
Friends and colleagues are still surprised I'm moving out of Kansas, like for some reason that was an unfathomable thought. The entire time I've lived here in Kansas, I've only had three things keeping me here:
1. My ex, who moved us here in the first place in 2009 (and broke up with me 18 months later; that reason ended then)
2. Graduate school, until last May.
3. Working at the university since then.
Literally nothing else has kept me here in this state. If I would've found somewhere else to live and work last summer (before I took the position at the university), I would've moved out of state then. Daisy and I were exploring all sorts of options even then. My position ends in a month, and I'm getting married shortly thereafter -- why is it automatically assumed by everyone that once I'm married I'll still want to live here and continue teaching to only make $12k a year, when for a full third the year I'm not even getting paid because I'm not teaching? Did people assume I was going to marry Daisy, and then we'd live separate lives in separate states, with her still living in Omaha and me returning to Kansas to live here alone with the cats? That's not how marriage works.
As the university is not offering me any more money for -- or any opportunities for advancement in -- what I do for a living, it was inevitable that I'd move on. I love my job there, and I love teaching, but I still have to pay the bills. And there will be more, higher bills after I'm married. It's simple finances. I'm struggling as it is now, and I have been for the better part of a year and a half. I live a pretty simple life, but that life can't be simplified financially more than it already has been; corners can't really be cut any more than they're being cut now. I have neither the time nor the ability to do so.
Some of you may be wondering if the upcoming end of my employment at the university is changing the way I do my work -- if, for example, I'd be the kind of guy who would be like "Pshhh, fuck it, let's give everyone A's and not care about anything anymore." The answer to that is no. It doesn't matter that my job will be ending soon. It doesn't matter that I may never teach a college class again after next month -- again, I take pride in my work, and my responsibilities as a professor don't change in my remaining time as one, nor do I take care of said responsibilities in any fashion any differently than I always have. I respect my job. I respect my profession. I respect my peers -- higher-ups and subordinates -- more than to completely fuck off for the next month. My job isn't done until my contract ends. I don't care that I am completely, brutally swamped with all of the other work I must spend countless hours doing -- I'm not a slacker and never have been. To brush it all off and stop caring about my duties would not only be disrespectful to the university and to my students, but it would be dishonorable, and above all things, I pride myself on being honorable.
To those ends I must keep working at basically a breakneck pace, metering out time for tasks. Tonight I'll be grading through all of my 210 students' projects one by one until I'm finished with them...and then I'll move on to the workshop copies for my 102 class, and lesson planning for my 011s, before eventually going to bed and getting up tomorrow morning to clean out the rest of the garage and storage room, pack more boxes full of clothes and around-the-house stuff, and then run the dishwasher and take care of all of the laundry that needs to be dealt with. My hair is greasy and looks crazy. My beard is dry and itchy. I haven't showered since Wednesday afternoon. I haven't eaten anything in eighteen hours. The cats are restless and keep getting under my feet as I move back and forth through the house, as they don't understand why there are so many boxes around everywhere or why I need them to move out of the way while I'm working all the time. They just want to be with me, and it's not like they understand the nuances of cleaning and packing things. I, meanwhile, just want to eat and sleep, but I can't.
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