The Leen

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Okay, where to start? There’s been a lot going on in the past few months. I guess I should start by going back to October or so. I posted then that I was looking for a job. Things were tight, and we have already been living a bare-bones, no luxury budget for a couple of years, so since there’s been nothing to cut, the only way to help the situation was to bring in more income.

I started casually looking around for something, but nothing seemed right. In November, I posted about some “potentially exciting developments,” which was a job I’d been interviewing for that fell through shortly after I posted that, which is why I never mentioned it again. I had two or three other opportunities cross my path during December and early January, all of which fell through, too. It was extremely frustrating. With all of these, we’d gotten to the point of discussing when I could start when suddenly something happened that made it not work out.

Meanwhile, things were really stressful at work for Brett. Details aside, due to some changes in his role at work, we started talking about what in the heck we’re supposed to actually do with our lives, long-term. This conversation began at the end of November, and quickly came around to him wanting — again — to apply to grad school. We talked about how if he were to get his MFA (Master of Fine Arts) degree, he would be able to apply for teaching jobs, since it’s the terminal degree in his field. He’s talked about wanting to teach for years, as long as I’ve known him, really, and due to these changes at work, all of this came to a head and it suddenly seemed like applying to grad school might make sense.

I’ve resisted for a long time the idea of him going to grad school. Honestly, the way that Maine went, I was in no way eager to have him be in school again. Maine was extremely difficult on me, especially, and it was hard on our relationship and our finances in ways that still affect us, four years after leaving.

So after thinking and praying about it, I laid down some guidelines for him. He could investigate grad school, on these conditions:

1. We canNOT go deeper into debt for him to do this. His school loans from undergrad alone will take us a lifetime to repay, not to mention the consumer debt we incurred during that time, which we are still working on; we cannot do anymore. And that immediately ruled out private schools, which cost almost double his annual salary for only one year of schooling, and most programs are two or three years. Yikes.
2. He has to maintain his hours at work so as to keep our health benefits, and so I won’t have to go back to work full-time. Due to my heart stuff, I *have* to have group health coverage, and we need to be able to pay our bills (and I already worked and supported him through one degree) so he has to keep working.
3. I need a support network in place for day-t0-day life, and we need to lay out clear expectations of what our lives and our limited time together and our responsibilities surrounding our home and Elanor will look like if/when he attends school.

So, with that in mind, and with private schools excluded due to cost, we started investigating public schools, and realized that the application deadlines were about two weeks away at UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University.

He quickly scrambled and filled out an application for each, and sent them off within hours of the deadlines.

And then we waited.

Meanwhile, I was still trying to find work. Finances were growing ever-tighter (with Brett’s changing role at work also came a salary change…great…just what we needed. I thought things couldn’t get any tighter, but then — hey! they did!), and my anxiety was through the roof. In desperation, in mid-January I posted an ad on Craigslist that I was willing to do childcare.

I had a couple of bites that didn’t work out, and then, just as I was getting ready to, I don’t know, sell some stuff at a pawn shop or donate plasma, I heard back from a family looking for care for their infant girl.

Within two weeks, the deal was struck, and I’m now looking after her four days a week. Obviously, I won’t blog much about her here, but there you have it.

We’re entering our third week now, and everyone is slowly adjusting to the new normal. It’s been rough on Elanor (and of course she was sick the first week, which did NOT help matters) but we’re managing. More about that in a later post.

In that same span of time, Brett’s heard back from both schools — and he was accepted to both UC Berkeley and SFSU! I’m so proud of him. SO proud!! Berkeley is a very, very big deal…he was one of seven students accepted to the MFA program out of over 200 applicants. Wow! Just…wow. I’m so excited for him.

He’s actually at an orientation there today, so I’m excited to hear more tonight when he gets home. But it looks, so far, like the practical elements of my conditions will work out: he’ll still be able to work, the cost of schooling will be manageable, there are lots of benefits available for students with families (grants, fellowships, reduced-cost preschool, health insurance, etc) at a school as large as Berkeley, and he will have the opportunity to even teach an undergrad course (for pay!) in his second year.

With Brett finally taking steps to act upon his long-term goals and dreams, it’s spurred me to do the same, and I’m going to start pursuing becoming an IBCLC-certified lactation consultant! I realized, a while back, that I would be really good at it, and that I’m passionate about breastfeeding and helping women breastfeed successfully. I’ve been involved in our local La Leche League group here in San Francisco since shortly after we moved here, and I love it. It’s going to take me a few years to do this (the process is very rigorous, especially for someone with no nursing degree) but I’m hoping that I can sit for the exam in a few years. By the time Elanor is a bit older (say, elementary school-age), I’d love to be practicing.

So there you have it. Lots of changes. I’m working, Brett’s going back to school, and we finally feel like we have a viable, longer-term plan for our lives. We feel a little strange that we’re nearly 30 and only just now figuring all of this out, but better late than never, right?

I could keep yammering on, but I’ll stop. That’s the big stuff. Hopefully I’ll get back to blogging about the little stuff soon!