On Making the Right, and the Very Wrong, Decisions

This week has not. been. great.

I was wait-listed by one of the residencies I applied to --  which is not the best outcome, obviously, but not the worst. They can accept 40 artists for residency and they had 285 applicants. So I suppose to have made the waiting list when they have a 14% acceptance rate is pretty good. (I did the math there correctly, right? Remember, I'm a poet. Numbers are not my language.)

But the next day I was rejected by another residency I was really hoping to get . . . because they offer a family-friendly option, where you can bring your partner and kids. The kids are occupied from 9 to 4 in a kind of summer camp, your partner gets to do whatever he or she wants during that time, and the artist gets to go their studio for those hours and work on their project(s). It sounds like heaven. But heaven said get the hell out of here, Sarah Kain. So . . . no summer residency in Vermont. (Insert sadface emojii.)

These rejections, while naturally disappointing, are something I can understand. They're part of the process of being a writer or artist -- you apply or submit on a regular basis, you receive your yes or no, you move on. It's not personal and it's not guaranteed. It's as much luck as it is sometimes a result of your hard work and mostly a result of who you know.

When you feel desiccated inside, there's always the internet.

But just before I received any of these rejections, I found out some news about the college administration and the (committee-approved) sabbatical applications that is wholly, thoroughly discouraging and insulting and infuriating. It's a slap in the face after 12 years of sacrificing a LOT of sanity and family time and general well-being IN ADDITION to ignoring or pushing to the side my writing, which I've always thought of as a second career.

The gist of it is that it's highly probable -- almost certain -- that I'm not being granted a sabbatical this year. For some reason -- that the president will have to explain in writing, as he is contractually obligated to do -- the college can only afford to grant 5 sabbaticals -- not 18. And I already know, through many many conversations and administrative decisions over the past few years -- just how much the college values the humanities and, in particular, creative writing. The likelihood that my creative writing project will be one of the approved 5, if ANY of the approved 5 are even humanities-related, is growing smaller and smaller as I write this.

I'm just disgusted with the whole business. Disgusted with the way the college is being run more and more like a business, and a poorly managed business at that. 

I made my decisions in career and life really deliberately. I do enjoy teaching -- being in the classroom does inform my writing and I find that aspect of my job responsibilities invigorating and well worth the effort of class-prep and grading. But I made the decision to stay in academia and jump through the hoops of promotion by doing all of the other nonsense partially because of money -- because I have a family to feed and I'm a responsible person -- but also because I "knew," thanks to a contract and a bargaining unit that doesn't seem to be working as well as it has in the past, that I would have opportunities to take breaks from academia in a way that would serve my work in academia -- i.e. sabbaticals -- and it's the promise of those breaks which has made it easier to swallow the fact that I make less money than I would if I'd continued to work in the private sector, and I have far more responsibility -- and far less free time for my writing -- than I would if I worked in the private sector. 

That last sentence was really long.

Anyway. I feel demoralized, deflated, etc. I'm going to have to reconfigure my role at the college, yet again, if I don't get a sabbatical. Because I'm fucking tired of putting my projects to the side in support of other people's priorities, and meanwhile watching my peers from grad school do absolutely amazing things. Because obviously they made better choices about where to put their time and effort. I'm not saying that without a doubt I'd be doing those amazing things alongside them, but I do know that I'd have more work, simply more actual writing, to show if I hadn't spent the past decade working for this place.

Note: Also, in light of the tragedy in Florida this week, I know very, very well that all of the above is bullshit and nonsense. Just thought I'd add that, occasionally, sometimes, rarely, I have perspective.