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| A Map of the Open Country of a Womans' Heart, c. 1833–1842 Source: http://visualoop.com |
(Alternatively Titled: Things I Might Want To Do Or Be When I Grow Up.)
When I in school I wanted to be either
a lawyer or an artist. A lawyer because I was clever and I liked
using that to prove that other people were not, or an artist because
art made me happy. I chose art. I only regret that decision maybe two
days a week. It's not that I wish I was a lawyer exactly, but it
would be nice to have a salary, and for the part of my brain that was
once clever to still work. And to have a salary.
So, Be An Artist; that was my dream. I
didn't get very far with that, there's nothing like art school to
kill your dreams, and your tolerance for artists. I left art school a
year early; sad and angry and betrayed by the neglectful - borderline
abusive - tutors I had been trusted to and completely, utterly
unemployable. Someone asked us to photograph their wedding so we did
that and it turned out that a) we were good at it, b) it was quite
fun and c) people would PAY us! We were sold.
Eight years in and we've had enough
though, the moments of fun are outweighed by the pressure, the
responsibility, the logistics, the desk work, the back ache and the
speeches. We've known since the beginning that it wasn't going to be
our forever careers and we've been having the exact same conversation
for as long as I can remember;
'I don't want to be a wedding photographer forever.'
'Me neither. What else could we do?''Dunno.'
Nothing has changed except that we
can't, just can't, keep doing it. I've spent a lot of the last 6 months wailing at Nye 'But I don't know what I want to do, I don't have a dream.' Every time I say it I hear Ross from Friends; 'Ahhh, the lesser-known 'I don't have a dream' speech' (I keep this to myself, chuckling inwardly as the husband does not appreciate Friends references. I know, the things I suffer in my marriage.)
There still isn't a next
plan. There are lots of things that I sometimes think I would like to
do/be and I've been keeping a list. Let's imagine for a minute that
any of these is even slightly possible, that education in England
doesn't cost £9000 a year (NINE THOUSAND FUCKING POUNDS. Yes, yes,
yes, I know that in America it costs like, Fifty thousand,
but your country is absurd.) and that I have the time / energy /
mental capacity to retrain as anything; these are The Things I Would
Maybe Like To Be or Do (in no particular order);
Forensic Science. I have watched nine
seasons of Bones and it looks fun. When I watch Bones I can think of
nothing but splatter patterns and decomposition rates and bone
markers and how much I really want to learn about that. Also, having
watched nine seasons of Bones, I'm surely at least half qualified
now.
Teaching. I have flirted with the idea
of teacher training for years, initially because teaching is a
qualification that I could use anywhere we decided to live and then
gradually because I actually liked the idea of teaching. The thing is
I hate noise, crowds and parents so I would need to teach only quiet
kids and have nothing to do with the people who spawned them. Which
I'm sure is an option they offer you when you're looking for
placements.
Writing. I love to write, which you
might have noticed and after doing a really excellent writing class
at City University last year I even feel a little bit like I could do
it in a more focused way, if only I knew what I would like to write
about. That only takes me so far though, as far as a way to spend all
my time but not a way to make an actual
pay-for-food-and-raise-my-family living. No one makes money from
writing. Even real, published, experienced writers with actual books
have to get other jobs, like serving coffee or turning tricks.
Publishing. in lieu of
being able to write my own work I would enjoy correcting other
people's mistakes and I believe that books will save the world.
Unfortunately I hear print is dying. Also it's a fairly
London-centric industry and I think you need to start out with a) a
degree in English and b) a willingness to work 50 hours a week
without pay. I have neither of those things.
B&B Proprietor in the South of
France. Basically I want to own this place, to drink wine and eat
cheese and grow food and probably learn to speak French at some point
and send my kids to school in a country that still values state
education and healthcare for all. (I know France is no utopia, you
don't need to tell me that, but it's not England. And it's warmer
that Scotland. Which is currently being fucked by England. So there
you go.)
Counselling. Friends of mine work in
counselling and psychotherapy and they are full of interesting
thoughts and conversations and opinions. Their training sounds like
training I would like to have, the studying like study I would
thoroughly enjoy. I've been to therapy, I've seen a couple of
counsellors and it's no exaggeration to say that they changed my life.
I'd like to do that for people. Sadly, I can only talk/listen to
people talk for an hour a day before I start biting the inside of my
face to stop me from closing my eyes and rocking back and forward
with my fingers in my ears. That could be a problem.
Zoologist. I was standing in a bus
queue a few weeks ago when the man waiting next to me admired my
purse (leopard print) and my scarf (leopard print) and my tights
(leopard print). He told me that he was a zoologist based in Paris
who works with South African wildlife reserves finding ways for the
wildlife and the local people to live harmoniously together. His wife
was a wildlife photographer (also fond of leopard print although I'm
sure she approached it in a more restrained fashion, most grown up
people do.) Anyway, we were just standing chatting about life,
leopards and the ridiculously small print on the Oxford bus timetable
when I felt a lump rising in my throat and my eyes burning, envy and
a sense of pointlessness washed over me, that is what I want to
do, I thought, I want to work with animals and the environment
and cuddle baby leopards.
Rare Breeds Farmer. I like animals
(see above), both looking after them and more recently, eating them.
Raising them myself seems like the best way to make me feel less bad
about eating them. Also they don't talk. I do hear that farming is
quite hard work though. And that land is expensive. And I find mud to
be a bit of a drag.
Micro-distiller. This is one that Nye
and I have talked about quite seriously, to the point where he has
researched stills and the laws preventing us from having one. We
have talked a lot about moving to an island where the only things
that grow are sheep (see above), potatoes and insanity. There's no
money to be made in sheep or potatoes (possibly in insanity, if I
pursued that counselling qualification first) but there is money to be
made in single estate British potato vodka... Sadly the rules in the
UK to make it very tough to set up a micro distillery, not impossible
but rather a ball-ache. I also worry about the state of our livers and general ability to function if we had liquor quite literally on tap.
Artisanal Toy Maker. Plan; move to
island, (see above) buy sheep, name sheep, shear sheep, spin fleece
into wool, knit toys, label them with their sheep's name and photo,
price at £100 each, sell them to Londoners as Single Estate Island
Teddies, live in perpetual state of shame at calling myself an 'artisanal' anything, repeat.
Photographer. I wanted to be a
photographer from the second week of art school, when I used the dark
room for the first time and from that rancid smelling liquid a
fleeting moment I had thought interesting the week before appeared in
a mixture of magic and alchemy and the teaching assistant told me I
had 'an eye'. The problem is I don't know how to make a living from
it, I don't have any experience and I'm not very good. Joke! I do! I
have! I am! The real problem is that I'm burned out. That I've been
making a living from it for 8 years and I'm exhausted. I don't want
to keep photographing weddings (which I'll write about one day) but I
don't have the energy to try and break into other areas. I am a tired
photographer.
So there you have it; my career plans.
Thank god our plan for the immediate future is to eat, sleep and milk
Nye's parents for both childcare and accommodation because our longer
term ideas are, um, questionable to say the least. I am living in a
state of faith at the moment, faith that our immediate plan won't
drive us crazy and that our longer term plan will become clear, and
that that longer term plan is not deeply unrealistic, unaffordable
and unsustainable. Living in a state of faith isn't a bad place to
be.
