Reasons to be fearful...

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 02:01:37 +0200

Reasons to be fearful (1, 2, 3)

Most people move because they are not happy with their life. But truth be told, I don’t have a bad life now, in fact I have a good one. It comes as a slight surprise me to (ever so cynical and ungrateful mind that I have) but what I want from life (to a large degree) I’ve been able to carve out for myself in the space I currently occupy, and that which I don’t have I see clear paths to achieving.

I’ve just finished organising and running a national conference at which Cabinet Ministers spoke along with other high profile, important national speakers. Three days after I leave for the US, I will miss a meeting with a Cabinet Minister (that I am invited to and that I arranged and orchestrated, and wrote the original research on – and furthermore am the resident organisational expert on) about the future of local government regeneration. This meeting is taking place because our organisations view is valued, and our organisation holds the view it does because of my work and opinion. Furthermore, a day later a 2 day conference is to be held in Paris with leaders from across the European Union to discuss and debate the future of European Regional Funding, again a meeting I am invited to and would be taken seriously at. But I won’t be going to either.

I fear that I am moving to a place with no culture, no options, nothing to inspire or encourage me, no one to brighten my days or lift my mood. I am afraid that it is not America that holds no future for me, but that it is Ohio, and specifically non major urban centre Ohio that holds no coherent or happy future for me. I can not see what improvements my life can have by moving; I can not see an upside.

What I hope for is it that at best, I will be in a similar (but different and thus inherently more challenging as I try to adapt) situation to the one I am in now, but ultimately I have been told numerous times America is not the UK, the things I value and like here are not there and live will be different. I.e. things will not be able to be as good as they are here. So I am not even aiming for better, yet it still seems that even my lowly ambitions will fail.

What do I want?
a) a fulfilling job that has some level of importance and I can genuinely say not only is helping do some good and changing things but is important on a local and national scale and sets my career (and CV) up with a stepping stone to better and more prestigious positions in future.
b) Friends that I am close to, that I can hang out with and that know and understand me. I am so very close to my friends, to me those that are close ARE my family, and it breaks my heart to be leaving them, in much the same way it hurts Jill everyday to be away from hers. My friends are not simply my friends, they are parts of me.
c) My family. But let’s not go there.
d) Things to be involved in, scenes and activities ;- rowing, music, arts/culture things I can meet people in, take enjoyment from doing and be inspired by and add into.
e) A nice home (safe, comfortable)
f) A reasonable level of income so that we can be relatively free from penny pinching and day to day income worries.
g) The ability to walk/explore in a city, be centred and understand my surroundings. Not having to drive from one endless row of strip malls and mega malls to another.
h) A nice decent car I like and enjoy.

Now, for anyone at most stages of life, they are fairly big points, and it is a reasonable achievement to secure them. But the point is, I am just listing the qualities my life holds at the moment. So am I simply shouting at the sky and refusing change? Maybe, but I don’t think so.

Essentially if I was faced with some of the options I am now faced with, immediately post graduating my M.A. they wouldn’t be that bad; a dead end job (but at least it’s money), living with parents (but at least it’s free) and going back to being slightly isolated as all your friends don’t live in the same place as you (or no longer congregate on the same location for uni but that’s expected). But the thing is, I’m two years past that (and in some respects even more). I have finally seemed to have arrived at a place where I am doing well in my career, I have settled into the place I live, I am comfortable and confident with my friends (not something that has simply happened- to trust and love the very dearest has taken my entire life) and in all other ways, my life has moved on. But I am now leaving all of this.

I feel like i’m moving to a place that seems to hold little promise. I have no prospects (of either a current career or when I do get a job, of where it could lead or how I could continue to move up and improve after whatever it is I could do), no idea of what I will enjoy as there seems to be little there for me (no rowing club that is appropriate, no big city we can live in as they are too far away, no music scene to go watch) and no knowledge of what can be made good or where my future can take me. It feels like I’m regressing; choosing a life less happy and with less potential than the one I currently have. Like I’m going back to being a teenager.

I’m worried Ohio will be;
1) Full of hillbillies
2) Full of murderous hillbilles
3) Full of republicans
4) Full of hillbilly republicans
5) Full of murderous hillbilly republicans
6) Cultural (and spatially) barren.
7) Isolated. In terms of neighbourhoods from focal points (cafes, resturants, bars, nightlife, shops, entertainment) and people from each other. And me from others.
8) Unimportant and inconsequential to anyone else, meaning anything I do there will prove both to anyone in my future (in terms of career). ‘The Midwest is somewhere you fly over’.
9) Hard and difficult. In every way.
10) Grim. (like the north/Newcastle/industrial areas in late 80’s early 90’s Britain – and that I’ll be a Boys from the Blackstuff ‘gizza job’ at it’s finest). I am scared of being unemployed, in terms of mentally dealing with it and it’s affect on my self confidence (especially as I’ve only just begun to appreciate and believe in my professional skill and ability and promise in the past two years as I’ve been working).

Before these couple of years had happened, when I got back from Italy (and before my M.A.) none of this was the case, I had no career plans or big ambition and was fine and happy to spend the days working at a call centre, going to the gym and seeing friends on weekends with no particular focus or aim. But if anything, I have been victim of my own ambition and desire, I have actually moved on in life, in a way that I had not realised until now. That life seems so unfulfilling to me now, and I don’t know how I can go back to it. I allowed myself to believe I could have a great and bright future, and for a time I have lived it (or started to – on a general path to get there). But like the credit crunch or dot.com bubble, it seems this reality will now fade with a sudden and certain swiftness.

So what am I doing this for? at the heart of this, a relationship. One of a father and his daughter. Of a wife and her husband. I leave behind all that I have built and worked for my entire life, the relationships, the career, the knowledge and the comfort; because to not move is to reject all that I have set to build and work on for the rest of my life – my relationship and our marriage. And this paragraph is a question, the other side of the equation. But at the moment I can’t tell if it balances and if it will all add up.

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Reasons to be fearful...