reality bites

Sometimes the enormity of what I did in passing on a 50k-a-year gig here (they confirmed I was their fist choice for the job) in brew city for an uncertain occupational future in the green mountain state hits me with such force that my heart starts pounding and my stomach feels all jumpy. This happens most frequently when I am thinking about money: money for 3-year-old ballet and music classes; money for preschool; money for a gym membership; money to buy books; money to pay for my research; and most relevant given my immediate circumstances, money to replace this dinosaur (more than 5 years old) of a laptop that I am using. It just crashed again. I only lost a couple of paragraphs, but still.... There are lines down each side of the screen. They used to be blue and red but now they faded to white and yellow.

Although I know I could get another laptop for $500, I really would rather have this dream machine:It's not that we couldn't find the money somewhere. But, if sociology isn't going to be an income-bearing pursuit for me, is it OK to use family resources on it when that means, for example, that my kids don't get music lessons or Montessori preschool? I mean, I already spend thousands of dollars a year on childcare, various supplies, conferences, etc. And, as I opted out of a salary as a sociologist because I want to move home to NNE, at some point don't I have to decide that, if I can't make a living at this there and with the work/family balance I want, that it is just a really expensive hobby?

I know there are all kinds of issues here around the household division of labor, etc...

I actually think I an handling all of this stuff (job market, move, etc) really well given how difficult, unsettling and unpredictably pivotal it all is. Although my life is tinged with a bit of disappointment and depression generally made manifest in a queasy feeling that I cannot be the mother I want to be and a productive sociologist in a place I want to live and, ultimately, that I am a failed academic, I am not unhappy in my day-to-day life. Mostly, I suspect, because I LOVE being a parent and I am too busy to spend much time brooding. This is a stark departure from earlier periods of uncertainty and reevaluation of my life's plan, times in which I went months doing nothing but working and lying in bed, packing on weight.

All the same, I really have no idea what my life is going to look like 12 months, professionally speaking at least. However, I do know that life for myself, my partner and my children is going to be fundamentally different as a result of our decision to move. Seems unwise to sink $2500 into a modbook.