This is not my beautiful life

While my fella and I were waiting for the car salesman to bring around what I was assured would soon be my frosty green 2004 Civic, the Talking Heads was playing at a volume just under loud over the speaker. They pipe the music throughout the dealership, even out into the lot near the door to the salesroom. Through the many hours I was there last night going over variously unaffordable car replacement options, I realized that the dealership playlist was meant to target my age group, possibly a few years older. I smiled, because I found myself perversely thinking of the soundtrack of the aged come the year 2045. I was imagining how strange it will be to hear Frankie Goes to Hollywood playing softly in the background while my roommate is being suctioned for a sputum sample or having her bedpan changed. Most likely, the many intervening years of car dealership soundtracks and other audio indignities will ameliorate the jarring scene that would otherwise be.

On a happier note, I think I'm getting a car. I say "think" because there could still be a hold up with the financing. But if that clears, I pick up my pretty green Civic on Friday. I have my Ford for two more days. I can't get rid of it soon enough. On the way home from this afternoon's meeting with the Honda financing fellow, I sat at the red light with my hand stuck out the driver's side window to compensate for the Ford's intermittently fucked left rear blinker. The smell of cooking coolant wafted in from the engine while the fan whirred away in a mostly futile attempt to bring the engine temperature down from just a hair under well done and I was reminded of exactly why I am willingly about to go very deep into debt and to bleed my combined savings and semester's living expenses of a hefty $6000 this week.

I am so damned happy I have good credit and about a thousand left over from my divorce settlement. But the savings will be gone after Friday, and the debt load will be at a frightening all time high.

This unavoidable situation has helped to underscore that I've been feeling much closer to quitting my PhD program since at least May. I'll leave the precious pauper act for those who have the health, some level of unshaken belief that life always turns out ok, and the family financial backing to support such silliness. Lacking these luxuries, it's nothing short of terrifying to know that I am literally pouring time, energy, and a huge amount of money into completing this degree.

The faculty attitude which sees any slow downs for my health problems as a smoke screen for lollygagging my way through the PhD program are quite wrong and clearly deserving of a battle. It's the kind of fight I don't easily walk away from. But it is looking less like a battle I can win with anything better than a pyrrhic victory. And the degree itself is seeming less and less likely to support me in what are the most probable and desirable careers for me given my physical constraints, my shaken belief that life will always turn out ok, my apparent allergy to academic culture, and what I know about the academic labor market.

An unbelievably petulant and exceptionally passive aggressive email in my inbox from the new grad in my lab this morning helped push that growing sense of "This is not my beautiful life" a little further into the range where bailing seems the best way to cut my losses. So far, I've lost many things including my self respect on more than one occasion. I've found myself needing to sacrifice personal principles I hold extremely dear in order to even try to play nicely with the other children. I spent the last few years of good health I think I will ever have in my life first attending one crappy PhD program and now another, which, after a change in leadership is rapidly transitioning into high grade crap itself. My debt load is increasing each semester I waste here with little chance of a sure way to pay it off at the end (i.e. few tenure track jobs available and those that are involve hideous teaching loads). I know I have more I can lose before I am left with nothing but I doubt my ability to pull up out of nothing. If I were healthier, I might not be so sure of that, but as it is I don't think I can afford to take the hit to my sanity, any chance of current or future peace of mind, and all of my patience that another year of this program seems to require.