transitions part 2

Despite moving into a better neighborhood and apartment in Toronto, something about this city just didn't resonate with Chris. He wanted to move back to Baltimore. He was miserable here. So I got it in my head that we needed a project and we decided to buy a house. It was really the last year that we would have been able to buy one. Chris made a "grown-up" salary the prior year which made him able to procure a loan. There's no way in hell he'd have been able to get a loan the next year. We found a dinky little weird house in Hampden for under 100k and Chris moved back almost exactly a year ago today.

The house was clearly in need of work, but I don't think either of us anticipated just how hard it would be to get the house together. It wound up being a complete gut/renovate and the burden has certainly fallen primarily on Chris's shoulders - both emotionally and financially. He's fully funding this life we will have together and that brings about some complicated feelings for me.

First, the liberal feminist in me is all - Get out of grad school and get a real job bozo. You shouldn't rely on a man to pay your bills! I am feeling very guilty about not paying my fair "share" of the expenses or shouldering my fair share of the burden. I have contributed to the house in a number of ways, of course. My father is living on peanuts to help us with this house. My friend has been instrumental in guiding us through this process and is planning on building us our staircase for free. My networks allowed us to do this, for sure. But that's not my actual labor or my "real" resources. At the same time, the anarchist/socialist in me bristles at hearing myself measure resources in such blatant monetary terms. Chris recognizes the joint efforts required for getting this project off the ground and creating our dream home. But mainstream financial ideologies get in. I can't help it.

Second, I worry a lot (I could end the sentence there really) about how to make enough money when I get back while at the same time getting my academic work done in a timely fashion. All this for a "career path" that could well be a dead end and that I'm quite frankly ambivalent about in the first place. I know that it's a bad idea to make major life decisions in such a state of flux. So I live in this purgatory. I know, however, that I'll have to sit down and make some major choices and have some pretty intense conversations with Chris (once we actually have a couch again).

Ah, first world problems.