How Did I Get Here?

Who hasn't asked this question? Talking Heads asked this. Joyce Carol Oates asks this: Where are you going, where have you been? I came across it again while reading Klaus Mann's Mephisto today. An attaché from a Scandinavian country asks himself how he's ended up at the gargantuan and grotesque yet highly civilized and oddly enchanting birthday party of a high-ranking Nazi official. "How did I get here?"

I asked myself this question again, today, while having a cup of coffee with a professor visiting for the quarter from Germany. I'd sat in one of her classes and had been impressed with her calm demeanor and laid-back nature. She was a walking encyclopedia, one of those scarily well-read people who actually knew what they were talking about and wrote books.

I also liked her because we were wearing the same ring, three silver bands loosely entwined, a ring I'd worn in one form or another for 20 years.

She had on these black and grey striped tights, a similar dress. She looked like a German Dr. Seuss, only more reserved.

We were talking about my career, a place I don't like to go, because it's as barren as a 100-year-old woman's womb. The professor suggested I consider going to Japan for a few years, work in one of the German Studies departments there, as they're very interested in hiring right now.

"And I don't think I could have said this 10 years ago, but a black woman in a German Studies department is something unique indeed."

Too true.

"But tell me, have you finished your dissertation?"

"Yes, I finished in 1998."

"'98?"

I took a slow, quiet, deep breath. I knew what was coming. "Yes, in '98."

"Oh. That's a while. 11 years. You might be better idf staying here and doing the same rhing for a while. Where were you?"

Where was I? I've been trying to answer that for years. I've been trying to make up for it almost as long.

I told her the story, the whole thing I'd told another professor in the spring. What bothered me most was the fact that the story never became more comprehensible, that it never seemed to get better, that it never hurt any less to know how badly I seem to have screwed up. A woman without a country and only a shitty sob-story to call her own.

How did I get here? Where am I? Maybe if I start with the latter question, I can better answer the former.

Where am I?

Right at this moment I'm sitting on a train on my way back to the city, where I'll pick up my car and go home. I'll change clothes and go to fencing. Then, I will go back home, make some dinner, and grade essays.

But I guess that's not the really an adequate answer.

I am trying to find my way to the surface of academia again, too stupid to give up, and too lacking in other, more profit-oriented skills that could actually help me pay off my student loans.

I'm 38 years old, single, childless, and working as an adjunct lecturer between 2 vastly different institutions.

I am in a place where I can't seem to move forward but refuse to step back.

I am between the proverbial rock and a hard place, trying not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, if you don't mind incongruous metaphors.

I am teaching at a great university in a great German Studies Department. I am working with people who are teaching me things I should have learned in graduate school, and students I enjoy and adore.

And it is only temporary at best.

I am on the brink of getting it, of actually using my brain for something other than wondering what's for dinner, or if I should wash the dishes or take out the garbage.

I am in transition, I hope to better things.

So does that help explain any better how I got here?

Does that mean that I simply don't know?But I know. Very clear cut choices landed me where I am.

I try to focus on the good choices. Without choosing to go back and live in Germany for a year, I would have never taken the job where I am now. If I hadn't stopped talking to my ex after the break up, I'd be an even bigger basket case than I am now. If I hadn't chosen to stick to a diet for more than a year, I would have never lost the 80 pounds that made me miserable for 7 years.

Is my learning curve just that much worse? Is that why I did so badly in geometry?

People tell me it's unproductive to worry the past like a dog does a bone. They're right. Doesn't make it any easier though.

Some would say that my "here" ain't that bad. And I agree. But it ain't that great either.

The professor, towards the end of our chat, pointed at my ring and said, "We're wearing the same ring." She smiled brightly.

"I've had this ring for 20 years." I did not mention the gold version I wore for almost 12 years, the ring I buried in a box and passed over to friends so I wouldn't set the whole thing on fire and regret it later. That was five years ago. My friends still have the box.

"I chose this ring because of my three children."

I got the ring instead of children.