Career vs. Family

Nothing is worst than taking a break.  Sure, it's healthy.  Sure, we probably need it.  But staring at my phone every five seconds hoping he'll text me or call me and forgive me isn't a healthy feeling.

So instead I am going to write about my current life dilemma (which is so totally a first world problem).

Anyway, here I am.  Junior year of college, and flying high with a great GPA, a lot of research experience, several connections to people in my department as well as government agencies, and yearning to be a Professor at a research-based institution.

This path isn't an easy one.  First off, I would have to go and spend 4-5 years of my life at a school that ISN'T the one I am currently at (let's just call it the U of X) and study and learn vicariously, and then I would go get my post doc somewhere else, and THEN I would try to find a faculty position at a school, really any school, that would accept me.

My boyfriend, on the other hand, has his dreams set-up right where we are.  Right in the LAST place that I could go to graduate school if I wanted to pursue my own dreams.  I thought we could figure something out.. like I would stay here for my masters until he finished his masters and then we could go somewhere else to be together where I would get my Ph.D.  But he sees my dream as something that would take away from his own, and in many ways I agree.  Having to move around with me as I pursue my dream would cause him to have to restart his career over and over again until I was finally settled down somewhere.  And he doesn't want to do that.

As I am writing this, I can hear people thinking in their heads, "Jeez lady, you're both young.  Your dream should take precedence over anything else.  You'll find someone else."  And you know what? That's what he told me.  I mean he wants it to work out too, but he says that I can't be devastated if it doesn't.  And this just makes me feel like I care MORE which is even more frustrating because I always feel like I am more emotionally invested in a relationship than the person I am dating.