By my junior year at Scripps, I was feeling the pressure to have a post-grad direction. As I buckled down to try to map out my life, or at least figure out how I would keep myself occupied the summer before senior year, I came to the realization that my plan-making and goal-setting was going to be severely hampered hindered curtailed influenced by my relationship.
Enjoying time together in Yellowstone National Park before senior year.
This was hard for me to come to terms with, as I’m sure it is for other fiercely independent women who have grown up in an environment with the message that no man is worth sacrificing your dreams. I have to admit that I felt some amount of guilt, as if I was letting my feminist foremothers down by considering my boyfriend in the life plans I was forming, particularly because my partner is of a certain Myers-Briggs typology that tends not to prioritize planning. If I am compromising from the very beginning, while he continues to fly by the seat of his pants, I can’t help but think that I will wind up sacrificing the most in the long run.
This brings us to the classic Scripps psychology survey question: What is more important to you—your relationship or your career? I have always maintained that I shouldn’t have to choose. Am I being naïve or an idealist?
My senior year, as I started applications for jobs and fellowships and my partner continued to pretend life after college wasn’t going to exist, I decided not to worry too much about the compromises I assumed I would have to make. My partner doesn’t yet know what kind of career path will make him happy, and so I cannot possibly compromise my own goals to get him there faster.
Together, we talked about our life plans, career goals, our dreams, and I realized I’m lucky. At the cusp of launching onto my career path, I have the love and support of a stable relationship, but without the inhibitive requirement that we must physically inhabit the same space. After graduation, I was headed to teach English in Bulgaria. He eventually came to the conclusion that he wanted to flex his language skills in Russia. And after that, who knows? We may come together in the same city for a while and then move apart again as one or both of us pursue grad school. I like the wild and open spaces of the American West, and he prefers the constant chaos of cities like Chicago or New York. Our difference in geographic preferences, which may have been a deal breaker in another age, are part of what allow us to follow our dreams independently, even as we continue our relationship and support each other from afar.
Long distance relationships are not easy, and they don’t come highly recommended. But by now, my partner and I are veterans. We are, in fact, quite good at long distance after much practice and frequent Skype calls. We are both skilled communicators and being apart forces us to be much more intentional with the time we do have to talk to each other. What, on the one hand, could be considered a challenge for the relationship is, on the other hand, a chance to balance relationship and career. For now, at least.
Whenever I am in need of inspiration in the combination of relationships and careers, I look to Scripps alumna Gabrielle Giffords ’93 and her husband, Captain Mark Kelly. While she followed her career to Capitol Hill, her husband followed his into space. Russia and Bulgaria don’t seem so far apart in comparison.
Photo source: gabriellegiffords.com