2016, or The Next Big Thing

It is a new year -- almost two weeks in -- and I already know to expect a very different adventure. And I'm finally ready for it.

I will be leaving my current job at the end of May.

Well over a year ago, I made the decision to draw up a timeline for leaving my job as a professor and faculty member at a small Christian liberal arts college.  Like Legion, my reasons were many, but they were actually a mix of demons and angels -- not solely bad, not solely good.  At the end of 2014, I put myself on a 3-5 year plan for exiting my position. I knew I was ready to leave academia, but I didn't want to drop everything at once. However, after some serious policy and cultural disputes began to raise their heads at the institution, I knew I had to leave sooner.  Now I am about to begin my last semester at the college.  It is so exciting to feel this new freedom coming.  While I'm not exactly counting days -- well, okay, some days I am -- I am ready for the next big thing.

Why am I leaving now? Several of my personal reasons involve faith and policy at the institution itself.  For one, my current and ongoing questions regarding personal faith and spirituality no longer mesh with the theological expectations of this institution. Also, my anxiety and objections continue to grow regarding the policies that the college may put in place as a result of its faith-based status.

Other reasons for leaving have been clinging to me for years and have no connection to this particular college at all. Even when I was completing my Ph.D., I held many fears about my work in research.  I may be a talented and passionate teacher, but I'm not a talented and passionate scholar, a key part of remaining in academia. During the past eight years, I have dedicated time to every other task for my job except publishing and scholarship. Now I realize that this blank space in my CV has, in actuality, been no great loss to me.  I was probably ignoring it, hoping it would just go away and not nag me anymore. I do not wish to pursue academic publishing -- maybe I never really did. (There. I said it.) I love analyzing literature and film with great gusto, but the idea of writing something that maybe eight people will read on a good day no longer fuels my fire. Of course, since I do not want to pursue academic writing, I also know that I cannot pursue another full-time faculty position.

There are other reasons why it is time to make a change. It is an understatement to say that the past seven years or so have stood witness to chaotic upheaval in my life.  In 2008, when my first husband Christopher suddenly died of cardiac arrest, I blindly started my new job as a newly-minted English Ph.D. with no real clue of who I was or what it meant to grieve, live alone, or be in a new place. On a daily basis, the only thing I clung to was the fact that I WAS AN ENGLISH PROFESSOR.  The only things I knew how to do were write syllabi, teach a 50-minute class, be responsible, act like I had it all together, and grin and bear it before I crumbled to pieces every night. I could see a day in front of me, then a week, then (maybe) a month.  I could count days until a semester ended, and then I could work on creating myself again. But there was never enough time to get acquainted with myself. I was probably leaving this job the day I began it. Even though I was living in a community that embraced me, they didn't know me.  How could they?  I didn't know myself. It was hard.

Now, seven years later.... after remarrying, moving to St. Louis, encountering new neighbors and a new community, living in a new home and about to purchase another....the time to leap is now.  So where to?  I want to be good at a few things and not mediocre at many.  I'm ready to be more than an English professor...perhaps not even an English professor at all. I can no longer be defined by that one role -- it no longer fits who I've become. I'm read to obey the voices inside that have been screaming at me for nearly four years, "You need to go!"  I was too frightened for too long, but now, I'm ready to heed Lissa Rankin's words:  "When the pain of staying put exceeds the fear of the unknown, you leap."  So I'm leaping. 

It's fair to say that we've already been leaping.  My husband Jesse and I have been running a "dry run" AirBnb that we call Urban Roost -- we've been renting an apartment from our good friends next door.  This has been a successful venture for us, perhaps not in monetary terms but certainly in popularity and bookings.  It has given us just that bit of confidence to move forward.  We are now planning to expand Urban Roost into our upstairs unit and (we hope!) into a 4-family building in St. Louis.  We expect that this process will take the next several months to a year, and it will require property management, time investment, and organization.  Eventually, we hope to transform our AirBnb into our own business property, Urban Roost.  This transition will require that at least one of us work part time (if not full time) on the business booking and management. 

I'm sure many think this is a crazy plan.  Maybe you do. Or maybe that's my own voice as well, the one worried about making less money or learning new skills or being too old to begin again. However, I think it no more crazy than (heaven forbid!) pursuing a Ph.D. in English. I took that risk, I met those challenges, and I fulfilled my goals. Why not do it again, in another form? 

Naturally, I am still a teacher, and I will pursue part-time or full-time work in that area, at institutions where I will prove a better fit. But the next big thing is here -- finally! -- and it is in my interest to leap towards it.  Thanks for greeting me on the journey.