Career counseling, 3

This will be quick. You all remember that from time to time I have puzzled about whether I'm in the "right" career, and this topic has come back to me more frequently since I was laid off earlier this year.

I've also mentioned (here and here, for example) the job-search consulting service that my previous employer hired to help all of us find jobs.

Anyway, these consultants offered a webinar a couple days ago about career changing. The presenter strongly recommended a website called "My Next Move," which lets you research possible new careers. One of the options on the front page lets you research new careers even if you have no idea what you want to do, by starting with a quiz about what you like to do.

So I tried the quiz. Sure, hell, why not? It compiled a profile of what kinds of tasks I like to do, and then generated a list of 50 careers that more or less matched this profile. Of these 50 careers, it identified 33 as either "Great fit" or "Best fit."

So what were these careers that fit me so well, according to the algorithm behind this website? Fifteen of the 33 that were flagged as either "Great fit" or "Best fit" were described as "<subject matter> teacher, postsecondary."

In other words, half of these "great or best fit" careers were "college professor."

Gosh. What a surprise. Nobody ever suggested anything like that before. I'm stunned.

I guess it is good to know, huh?

   

"Living consistently with your values"

I wonder if this post belongs over on the Patio. Maybe it does, though I'd have to pretty it up a little first. But let me get it at least written now, and think about where to post it later.

When I was out hiking with Debbie last week, at one point she started talking about her daughter and son-in-law and their family (two little boys). And somehow the topic of the Boy Scouts came up. Or maybe we mentioned the Boy Scouts first? (It's hard for me to remember exactly.) Anyway, Debbie said that her daughter and son-in-law had decided explicitly not to let their sons join the Boy Scouts. 

"Gosh, why not?" I asked. 

As an aside, I myself was never in Scouts, and I was kind of bored by it when Son 1 and Son 2 were involved. But they seemed to enjoy it more or less. Besides, there's a difference between not interested and forbidden.

"Homophobia," she replied. 

I had no idea what she was talking about, but made a mental note to check later. And according to this article in Wikipedia, at least today, it looks like the Boy Scouts have lifted any ban on gay Scouts or gay adult leaders. So I'm still not completely sure what she meant. But maybe there's more than this, somewhere else. I didn't spend a lot of time on the research, honestly.

I was silent for a while as we trudged up the hill, and then finally asked, "Is this because they don't want their sons exposed to bad influences, or because they don't want to give money to organizations they disagree with?"

"I'm not sure. Probably both. I think really they just want to live consistently with their values."

At that, I stopped saying anything more. I reminded myself that I never cared that much about Scouting in the first place. I reminded myself further that, even if I thought it worthwhile to point out the weakness in this reasoning, there was nothing to be gained by pointing it out to Debbie because the decision had been taken by someone else and she had no responsibility for it.

But it irritated me. Not that I hold any special brief for the Boy Scouts, but I do hold some kind of brief for logical thought. And this ain't it.

As I see it, there are two possible cases: either the programs, skills, and training offered by the Boy Scouts have no value, or they have some (positive) value. Arithmetically speaking I suppose there is a third case -- viz., that the value of their programs, skills, and training are negative (i.e., that these things are overtly harmful). But practically speaking the "negative" case can be handled under the "no value" case.

In Case 1, where the value offered by Scouting is zero (or negative), the parents would decide against it not on the grounds of "homophobia" but on the grounds that Scouting as a whole was worthless (or harmful). This is not what the parents said.

In Case 2, where the value offered by Scouting is positive, I would expect to hear some discussion of trade-offs: On the one hand our boys could learn how to go camping and build fires, but on the other hand they'll be exposed to this or that opinion that we disagree with. And then there might be room for a further discussion about how heavy each side of the balance really is. 

Are your children really more likely to adopt the values they clearly learn from you, their parents, every single day at home; or the values they might possibly hear from their den leader once a week? 

For that matter, how likely is it that the opinions of the Scouting central leadership are actually reflected in the local groups? 

Briefly, is there a real problem here, or only an apparent one?

And if Debbie's daughter and son-in-law truly believed they were giving up something important or valuable by giving up Scouting, … wouldn't they have talked like this? Wouldn't they have wrestled with the decision? On the other hand, if they thought it worthless, why make such a big deal over it? Why not just say, "Scouting? Naah, why bother? Such a waste"?

Of course I never talked to them directly about it. But I heard in Debbie's explanation no recognition that there might be any complexity to the decision. And this puzzles me.

The thing is, surely it would have been educational (at the very least) for Debbie's grandsons to study camping and fire-building under people who thought differently from their parents. 

For that matter, since it is a simple fact that there are people in the world who disagree with their parents, surely it would have been valuable for these little boys to learn from an early age how to handle differences of opinion. 

Since real life does -- in fact -- require trade-offs, surely it would have been valuable for these same little boys (when they are old enough) to hear their parents explain this one particular trade-off to them. They could pick up the idea and apply it in other cases. They might see that the world is not a perfect place, but you can still make a life in it anyway.

Also, if they were to come to feel affection for a den leader who taught them valuable skills but whose opinions were different from theirs or their parents', they might learn that human beings can be precious and irreplaceable even if you disagree with them about this or that particular topic. That notion used to be one of the guiding principles of Liberalism, once upon a time. 

Of course the whole discussion was second-hand. But it disturbed me all the same. Maybe the daughter and son-in-law actually agree with me and their opinions just got garbled in transmission. That would be a pleasant thing to believe, if only I could.

Or maybe not. The world, after all, is not a perfect place. But you can still make a life in it anyway.

     

Retirement

A few weeks ago, I started talking to a financial advisor who is somehow connected with the job search consultants that the company provided for us. I figured that I should get some advice what to do with my 401K, since I hadn't looked at it for 15 years or so. In fact, for a while I wasn't getting statements because of some screw-up with my address. I could have gone online, but rarely got around to it.

When I did finally get around to it, a couple of months ago, I realized I needed advice even more than I had known I needed it before. There's a lot of money there. It's funny that even though this is an anonymous blog, I don't feel safe typing the number here -- not even a round approximation. Money really is a huge taboo for us, I guess.

But it's enough money that the advisor's first calculation said I could retire now if I want to. I'm only sixty, or almost. I told him to assume I would live till at least ninety, because it is a nice round number. He said I could retire now, unless I were sabotaged by a combination of an unfavorable inflation rate and an exceptionally poor stock market.

Of course he made a few assumptions. One is that I keep living in my one-bedroom apartment. Another is that I stop paying alimony. The Separation Agreement has a provision that drops in my salary (not "income," please notice!) mean drops in alimony, so if I retire then according to the Agreement Wife's alimony fades away to zero. There were other plausible assumptions too.

And then I could retire. Now. Not find another job, ever.

I asked him to recalculate with a couple of the input numbers adjusted to be a bit more accurate. Then I asked, What if I keep paying the alimony (even though I'm not required to)? (Just because I might like to  -- you know -- not be a jerk.) What if I double my rent by moving somewhere else? (So that I might have a guest room some day, or a study?) Well, of course those assumptions make it harder to retire now. 

Harder. Not actually impossible. But maybe I should work for a few more years. 

I don't know what to think. I don't know how to process this. 

How many times in the last few months have I stopped to ask, What if I didn't have to find another job? I can think, at least, of here and here and here and here.

And maybe I don't. Wow.

     

Cum clarem, obscuro

(For the Latin-impaired, the title means, "In clarifying, I obscure.")

It's getting strange having this almost-but-not-quite-romantic platonic relationship with Debbie at the same time that I'm in a regular-but-long-distance relationship with Marie. And it has been stranger because Debbie has been in-state while taking care of her mother for the last half year or more.

There was a time some months ago that she had to get away from her mom for a day; so she left her with a daytime caregiver and we met at a botanical garden that was about halfway between the two of us. (Call it a 90-minute drive for each of us, or maybe a little longer.) I made a point to email Marie about that ahead of time, and afterwards told her all about the plants in the garden. (Marie, like Debbie, loves gardening. I'm less excited by it, but I try not to express that opinion too loudly.)

Then last month Debbie's mother finally died. Debbie came to visit her friends here in Beautiful City, and spent the night at my apartment. I told that story briefly here. What I neglected to add was Debbie's remark as we were getting ready for bed. 

We slept on two separate mattresses; but because they are so cumbersome and clumsy to move, we left them in the same room next to each other. And I spread one large blanket over both of us. (My accommodations are a little spartan.) We changed into night clothes in different rooms, and we never touched each other. Also, as I said before, Debbie was sick several times in the night. But as we were working out all these details, Debbie wondered aloud if we should "pull back" a little. She went on to say that she really valued my counsel, and over the last year had even come to rely on it. But she added that of course that came with a significant emotional component too, and she figured Marie would be pretty unhappy about that part if she knew. I reminded her that I always tell Marie when we are going to visit each other, and I always tell her whatever we do. Still, her remark was another step down the "I love you" road.

As an aside, I realize that if I wanted to cast my own actions in the most ungenerous light, I would point out that telling Marie everything we do is always the safest and most innocuous thing I could possibly tell her about my visits with Debbie, because we never do anything at all risky … well, I suppose unless you count sleeping in the same room on adjacent mattresses under the same big comforter. 

And … gosh, come to think of it, when I reported on that visit after it was over, I neglected to mention that part because I thought that Debbie's gastrointestinal bug and her being sick several times in one night were more important. Certainly if there had been any risk of surreptitious sex, her sickness would have prevented it neatly. And that's why I thought it was important to talk about the illness; the illness, in turn, is why I thought it was excusable to neglect the sleeping arrangements. After all, nothing came of them -- nor would have, to be clear, even had she not gotten sick.

But my point was really going to be that if there is ever anything in my visits with Debbie that might concern or disturb Marie, it's never the deeds. It's always the intangibles: what we say to each other, and how it feels. So if you wanted to convict me of lying by telling the truth (or obscuring the matter by clarifying it, hence the title of this post), you could make a case. You wouldn't do that, would you?

Sorry, I got distracted. Where was I? Oh right. Visits with Debbie.

In time, Debbie and her sister made arrangements for their mother's funeral (planning it for a week ago today). When Debbie first mentioned this, she said nothing about my coming, which was OK with me. I had met her mother a few times, but it's not like I was close to the family. In a later conversation, she apologized for failing to invite me, and said of course I was welcome. I replied that there was no need for her to apologize, and that I just assumed she had decided I fell outside the family circle. She said no, she hadn't decided anything; she was just distracted and scatter-brained about the whole experience. But I repeated that I wasn't really part of the family circle, so I didn't need to come.

The day before the funeral -- in mid-afternoon -- she texted me, asking me to come. She mentioned that some other close friends of hers from Beautiful City were also coming, and they had known her mom even less than I did. Please come. So of course I said yes.

Just how well did I know Debbie's mother? I met her the first time not long after Debbie and I started dating; she told me she thought it was God's providence that Debbie and I had gotten together when we did. This opinion clearly embarrassed Debbie a lot, but I was able to agree with her calmly. I was invited to her house once, just for a visit; then I was invited a second time, for Christmas, to open presents. She made sure I had a stocking. (I mention that Christmas ever-so-briefly here.) I don't remember if I visited again after that, but if I was visiting Debbie while she had a video call with her mom, I would move into view long enough to wave and say "Hi!" She always remembered me and she was always gracious to me, regardless how my relationship with her daughter evolved. So it's not like we were strangers. I was prepared to be excluded because I often assume I'm going to be excluded anyway. It just seems natural to me. But we weren't strangers, and she was always gracious and kind to me. I said so to the other people I met at the funeral, for what it is worth. Maybe I wasn't out of place after all. 

This was sudden enough that I never did get around to telling Marie about it. On the other hand I did have time to tell my mother: it was going to take me several hours to drive to the funeral, and it would be a lot quicker afterwards to drive to my mom's house and spend the night there than to drive all the way back home. Also, a funeral isn't really a visit … is it?

Maybe I better say something. You think?

Then this Monday Debbie came to Beautiful City for another funeral -- this time, an old friend of hers whom I never knew. And she wanted to spend a couple days visiting other friends. She stayed in a hotel this time. And we went hiking outside of town. Twice. Tuesday afternoon and all day Wednesday. 

Wednesday's hike was grueling. Clearly I am nowhere near ready for the West Highland Way. But what matters for the purposes of this blog post is a remark Debbie made while we were hiking. She asked about my job hunting, and I admitted I haven't gotten very far. She asked about this or that possible direction to look, and they were things I really hadn't thought about before. Then she said, "The reason I suggested those particular jobs is that you could do them anywhere. And since they are portable, that means you'd be available for a lot more hiking and backpacking. So I have an ulterior motive." 

Oh. Wow. I guess you do. Wait, is this what you meant a month ago when you said, "Maybe we should pull back"?

As I said at the beginning, it is getting strange.

                 

Reframing

A couple days ago, I posted a long list of sour gripes that I had distilled from a daylong bad mood. One of these was a complaint that Marie wants me to move in with her. I dismissed this by saying that "the relationship comes with too much baggage" and "the extent to which she needs me is just wearing."

But there's another way to frame this. I even hint at it in a later paragraph of that same post, but not clearly enough.

As it is, my remarks make it sound like I'm talking about Marie: because of this-and-that things about her, I don't want to move in with her or make the relationship that much closer than it is now.

But maybe none of this is about her. Maybe this is all about me. 

More and more I feel like I don't have it in me to want that close a relationship any more, with anybody. Relationships like that require deep trust, and I don't have it to give. I suppose once upon a time I had a normal allotment of trust doled out to me; but it feels like I've used it all up.

Of course I could be wrong. I used to think I was long past the chance of feeling giddy romanticism after so many years with Wife, and then I fell in love with D. So maybe the possibility for being foolish is still there. Maybe when I'm 85 I will lose my head over some sweet young Nimuë; since I have no magic arts to teach, she'll doubtless have to get rid of me with something more practical like a restraining order.

Maybe I'm just an idiot. That's at least a parsimonious explanation of the data.

    

Feels like a long month, part 2

I think I'm learning something: Never, ever, tell you readers out there (if any) that I've stopped drinking; because the act of telling you so guarantees that I will fall off the wagon that very evening!

I've been in a foul mood all day. Part of it is the other stressors that I talked about in my post earlier today: the job hunting (combined with ambivalence for even getting a job in the first place), and Wife's contemptible stunt of wheedling a place to live out of Son 1 because she's afraid that the alimony I pay her might be interrupted (if I am jobless long enough).

But part of it is my phone call this morning with Marie. While I was cursing at the walls and failing to accomplish anything useful all day, I also found myself making up lists of things to yell about:

Item: The only two people whose spending I have ever tried to control before this were Wife (who spent like a drunken sailor) and D (who berated me for failing to follow through on an alleged promise that I still think I never made, to pay for one of her plane tickets). But now it's come up with Marie. In an email back in March she wrote:

I am realizing I owe you an apology.

I have been affected all along by knowing that I don't have the income to support indefinitely a jet-setting relationship.  And I've felt you were uncaring when that's what you seemed to want, when you seemed blithely to assume that we could just happily jog along the way we started.  

When I had deliberately hidden from you that I couldn't really afford this.  

I don't know when the right time to have had this conversation would have been, but I'm pretty sure five years in isn't it.

I hid pertinent information from you, and then, worse, I have been blaming you for acting in ignorance of that information.

As a rhetorical device, it's clever that she phrased it as an "apology." It sounds like she's claiming to be in the wrong. But surely this belongs on a list of historically magnificent passive-aggressive apologies. If you can read this and walk away thinking that she's really admitting to being in the wrong, you have a blessedly thicker skin than I do.

We emailed about it in March. No resolution. We talked on the phone. No resolution. I agreed to visit her in May, which I did. But that was a distraction, not a resolution. Then a few days ago she told me she had gotten a bonus at work, and how about if she spent it on a plane ticket to come see me?

And I told her No. Not on your nickel. If you are going to come see me, somebody else (like me, for example) has to pay for it.

So controlling.

And that's what we talked about this morning. She was offended at the idea that I should pay for her flight. I told her that now I knew it was a problem, there was no way I was going to allow her to keep paying for her own flights because I know for a fact it will come back to bite me. That some time five or ten years from now she'll be saying, "But Hosea, you knew that paying for these visits was hard for me. And yet you've allowed us to go blithely on as if we didn't have to change a thing. As if my finances didn't matter. As if  I  didn't matter." (Incidentally, did you pick up on the word "allowed" in that speech? After Wife and D, I have come to expect that any unsatisfactory arrangement will be retroactively ascribed to me as if I had the authority to change it. Better, therefore, to step up and change it now … by being so controlling. Marie has up till now not remarked on the choice of word.) We agreed that she will come to visit me some time soon, and I'll pay for the ticket -- even if only just this once. In other words, another distraction. No resolution.

Wow. That was a lot of background, wasn't it? The point of all the explanation was simply this: when I start micromanaging somebody else's spending, it's a sign that I do not feel safe in the relationship. It is therefore a danger sign for the relationship itself.

Item: Part of why I don't feel safe in the relationship is that Marie broods silently. She overthinks things heavily, and then follows the counsel of her inmost heart without ever communicating to the outside world. So, for example, she told me today that it hurt her feelings deeply that once I knew I was going to be laid off, I didn't consider moving to be near her. But I did consider it, I objected. I thought we talked about that. Apparently not, or at any rate not in her world. (I can't swear in a court of law that I discussed it with her; but gosh, I kind of thought I had.) The point, though, is that those discussions were back in February or March. This is the last day of June, and it's the first I heard of it. 

In the same way, I confirmed with my mother back then that if I never found another job I could move in with her. Marie says she offered that I could move in with her too, and I ignored the offer. OK, I'm not sure I remember her offering, but maybe. But again, that was February or March. This is June 30. What else is she hiding in her breast that I don't know about yet?

Hard to feel secure when I don't know what's coming.

Item: So -- about those offers to move in with her. Some time after we got involved, Marie explained that she had always wanted to be Mrs. Tanatu and she figured now was her big chance. When I explained that this was impossible because I am still legally married -- and in fact that there's no way I will ever marry again, even if Wife drops dead or is abducted by space aliens -- it did not go over well. But that discussion was more than four years ago. Surely she has had time to get over it?

Maybe not.

The thing is that I don't think I'll ever want to live with Marie, unless I've gotten old and feeble and need someone to look after me. It just feels like too much work, like the relationship comes with too much baggage for that. I love the literary side of the relationship, when we can trade poems back and forth. And the sex is fine too. But I'd have to be paying attention all the time. And the extent to which she needs me is just wearing.

Item: Speaking of that last point …. Over and over, Marie is distressed about things that come down to "It feels like I love you more than you love me." And I'm sure that's absolutely true. I haven't said so, because it's a hell of a thing to tell someone. But Marie seems to be still head-over-heels in love with me, suffering from that kind of self-forgetting romantic love that needs the other person 24-7, that is so captivating and delightful -- the kind of love everyone should enjoy at least once. And I don't think I have that in me any more. After Wife and D, I don't think I can trust anyone that far ever again. I'm happy with the time that I spend with Marie, but I don't think I'll ever again put my eggs in someone else's basket. That's why I'll never marry again.

And what this really means is that Marie isn't getting her needs met either. The relationship isn't right or fair for her either.

Have I just talked myself into breaking up with her?

I don't know. I'd better sleep on it. Maybe I'll get one more drink as a nightcap.

Bloody hell.

   

Feels like a long month

It feels like it has been a very long month.

I've had a couple of screening interviews: one for a job six hours from here that I really don't want, and one for a job that they said could be done remotely (though the office is about three hours from here). The second one also produced a real interview, by Zoom, late Monday. I think it went OK. At any rate there were no embarrassing silences. I can't tell whether they liked me, and in any event they were still in the middle of interviewing other candidates. We'll see.

On paper the job is perfect for me. I was excited while I was doing the interview. Now I just want to crawl into a hole somewhere. I find myself hoping I'll be rejected on the first pass.

I started a blog under my real name, about my real-life work. No links from here, though. Sorry.

Debbie visited for a night. Her plan was to visit a number of her friends in this town, and to spend the nights here. No, nothing happened in that sense -- I mean, no sex. Also she got sick for most of the night with some kind of gastrointestinal bug. I slept through it but she told me the next morning.

Debbie also has a number of hikes she wants to take me on. I've been trying to exercise more, so that these might even be possible. But I'm tired and I'd rather nap.

Last Saturday I had a routine physical checkup. My blood pressure was a little high, so they asked me to take it at home when I'm relaxed and send them the results. I'm doing that. But I've also stopped drinking in the last few days, to help pull down my blood pressure. I'm sure it's good for me, but I miss it.

Next month Wife is moving in with Son 1. He seems to have his eyes open about the whole thing. I think it is the most despicable thing she has done in a long time. Why hasn't she found some other form of income? Why does she insist on being so god-damned dependent? 

I've started to fight with Marie about how she pays for her travel to see me. I told her the same thing I once told D, that I have to pay for all her trips after this. She balked. We talked. No resolution. She's also been hurt ever since I decided not to go to Sticksville that in my worst-case planning I considered moving in with my mother but not moving in with her. She said she offered. I didn't remember that she'd offered, and I can't imagine a world in which I move in with her.

Maybe I'm depressed. Ya think?