So I’ve decided I want to write a book. I mean, I’ve been toying with this idea since I was a child. I tried out fiction a bit as a kid. Always got frustrated with myself and would throw out my handwritten stores. I don’t remember many of them, but I do remember one where I anthropomorphized the Bitterroot Mountains, the view from my life.
Why do I want to do this? I just spent the last hour looking at my budget and projecting my Personal Finance budget into the next 6 years. In the next six years, I’m going to experience a lot of change. I’ve always been a bit of a planner, but now I’m starting to wonder what its all really about.
During my PhD I went through a divorce. As those things go, it was fantastically easy. Telling my partner that it was over was painful, but I then left the continent and spent the next 12 weeks giving us both more space than anyone could ever need. I went to Antarctica, before the days of Starlink and easy connectivity. When I got back, my husband had processed the split, accepted it, and despite a show of trying to ‘make it work’ for about a therapy session and a half, put the house up for sale with out my prodding, and moved to the East coast in a few months. We were legally divorced one week after turning in the divorce paperwork to Linn county.
I think, even though the divorce was ‘easy’, as these things go, it contributed to a sense of questioning and wondering ‘what am I even doing anyway?’. That combined with working on my PhD (again, comparatively easy time period for me - see My PhD was easy), led me to notice the early stages of burnout. That burnout made me, for about a year, 24 hours away from quitting and opening a coffee shop on the Oregon coast.
I am very glad I finished the degree, and all the things that go with it. Opening a coffee shop would have been infinitely more difficult (not that that’s a bad thing) and I like finishing things, it turns out. However, instead of opening a coffee shop on the coast, I decided that I should take time off after my defense, and not look for a job. This was, when revealed to my advisor, deemed ‘quite the luxury’. I couldn’t agree more. My life up until that point had financially set me up to loosen the belt a bit. So I did.
My original plan was to put all of my things in storage except some camping gear, and spend the next year (yes a whole year was imagined) going on camping and backpacking trips, and alternate that time with spending time with people I loved. I felt I had neglected those people too much - I was starting to notice how family was a neglected part of my whole spiritual garden.
What actually ended up happening mirrored that, definitely, but had some variations. First of all, I got ‘involuntarily mobilized’ by the Navy reserves directly after my defense. 6-weeks after I finished my PhD, I was walking around in full battle-rattle getting my pistol and rifle qualifications to deploy to a war zone, as a safety officer - the irony isn’t lost on me for sure. This announcement while wildly inconvenient and causing me to cry on the floor of my grad student office floor for about an hour after I discovered the news, ended up being a financial and time boon.
Right before the news of the deployment, I had met a new partner, that was excited and on-board with quitting society with me. My partner, however, advocated for a bit more space than a 2009 subaru forester, since there would be two of us. A van, maybe? He implored and I relented. Finally, a school bus landed in our lap, and he set ahead fixing it into a living space. This would be the get away vehicle - a 1993 Bluebird Handibus. So, deploying to Kuwait in support of the Iraq war (which I learned from my orders was, indeed, still ongoing in 2023), was a financial boon and a time boon. It gave Kyle the time and both of us the money we needed to finish the build.
Coming back from Kuwait we did take that year off. We kicked it off with the bus fair in Oakridge, Or, and meandered around the PNW for about 6-months before my planning side kicked back in. I bought a junked out double wide trailer on a small county lot with some of my deployment money. An investment for the future - and a sure place to park. About six months after that, I landed a post doc position, which I refused, and a staff position working for the ice coring community which I didn’t refuse, back under my familiar, kind, and maybe a bit judgemental advisor.
But heres the deal - I’m back in hustle mode, I think. Planning year by year of which houses can we build and rent so I don’t have to work anymore. But whats that all about? I kind of like my job right now. Its flexible, ultimately interesting, and brings with it the promise of another antarctic adventure, which I crave. But as I plan my finances out to the end of my current job (which has an expiration due to the nature of it being a government grant), I realize that I don’t want to work for a person again. I like waking up on my own time, padding to my laptop in my joggers, working out when I want, and choosing who my friends are.
So what will I do when my time at this current job ends? Well, I dont know. My partner and I talk about having kids, which should happen soon (I’m 40 this year!), if it’s to happen at all. And if that happens, do I put all my resources in them? Of course I do. But then how do I show them what those resources can do? I consider writing, I consider starting my own business. My fervor for a business is quickly losing steam. Why start a business if it only limits your time to create? So thats what I want to do - create? Maybe if it involves creating I could get it kicked off.
here are some job ideas that I could like doing:
- Nat Geo Naturalist on cruises
- Professor at USNA or NPS
- Writer
- Community college professor (part time of course)