When I left Marine Science, and multiple times since I’ve got two main comments from people:
You’ll be back. You just need a break
You are extremely brave.
The first statement every time I heard it brought me so much anger or confusion, I truly don’t know which one, I would almost be in tears. I got really good at brushing off the statement with “You never know.” But I knew, I know, I won’t go back. As I’ve touched on before in my Belonging post, I never felt like I belonged in Marine Science. I always felt like I was on the fringes of the scientist’s world. Sure, I was smart enough to figure everything out. I could do the work to get there, and I always found the overall picture very intriguing, but I never really bought what they were selling. I just didn’t have the passion I saw in everyone else’s eyes.
I had spent a good 7 years strictly on Marine Science. I had moved 15 times in those 7 years. I had given up a life outside of my career. Don’t get me wrong I tried to have the relationships. Either we worked until we didn’t (typically distance got in the way), or they asked me to give up my career for them. I left and told them not to follow. They would try. I would make them feel like an idiot for trying. I was told building a career and a family doesn’t work. You pick. I picked a career. I don’t tell you this because I regret it. I tell you to show how dedicated I was. I was sacrificing everything because I thought I was doing what I had to for my career, to get ahead. I was going to get ahead in a man’s world. I was going to get ahead being a cute young female no one saw coming. I wasn’t going to be the cliché, the one who threw it all away from to be the wife and mother. Who spent her 20’s getting ahead in her career to spend the rest of her life losing the person she had defined herself to be.
I worked for 3 years alongside commercial fishermen. Yes, little Miss Tennessee who was told in training for that job I better not be too nice because some fishermen may take that as flirting and after a long day in the hot sun he may not be able to control himself. He was insinuating the polite nature of a southern belle would be taken as flirting and if a man came onto me for that reason…well, it’s not his fault it’s nature. There were 3 other women in my training class. I was the only one he directed this warning towards. You probably think well he’s a crud fisherman what can you expect.
In this exact same training, the people in the office were betting I’d be the first of my class to quit because I was just too pretty for the job. I was too nice for this job. I was too soft to take this job on. I stayed at that job until I finally after 2 years of applying endlessly got into graduate school.
I am nice. I am a southern belle. I also swear like a sailor. And by 23 had already seen my fair share of sexual harassment from the jobs I had within the hospitality industry. I wasn’t soft. I know they were underestimating me. Nothing made me happier to exceed people’s expectations of a cute soft southern belle. I was made to hold my own in a man’s world.
In graduate school, I prepared myself for a long, thankless sacrifice to get ahead in my career. I wasn’t prepared for the shit adviser who expected burn out as the minimum requirement from all his students along with lectures to his female students about “How serious, are you? You know it’s hard to maintain a relationship and stay in graduate school” My advisor was always looking for proof on how serious I was. Proof the male students did not have to give. Male students didn’t have these relationship conversations with my advisor. They spoke on prospective Ph.D. projects, because he automatically assumed, they would go when I was proving I could go. I was determined enough.
Looking back, I was seeking approval from this man. From a man I hardly respected myself. From a man, while produced amazingly dedicated students had questionable personal morals. I was striving to be like a man who cheated on his wife with his graduate student, used his poor daughters as pawns against his ex-wife, and had a tramp stamp….yes along with questionable morals he obviously had terrible judgment himself! But he held the key to my future. I would build a dam for that man if he asked for a bridge only to receive a pat on the head and to hear “Good job”.
None of that broke me. That was all hindsight. It was all the lead up to my last decision to “get ahead” for my career, take a job I was 3 years of experience and a degree overqualified for in a city where I couldn’t go out at night for a walk let alone a social life. I didn’t understand at that time how much I was in desperate need of a social life. I was miserable. It was that summer that broke me. I was gone before I got the call in October. I was questioning all the decisions I had made in the past. I was questioning my career. I was questioning was I happy. That’s when I found the quote:
“Don’t Cling to a Mistake Just Because You Spent a lot of Time Making it.” — Aubrey De Graf
It hit me like a ton of bricks. Marine Science had taken everything I wanted from me including my happiness and some family and friends who had to love me! Marine Science had broken me. I had allowed it to break me.
I knew the moment I got the phone call. I was done. I fell to the floor, cried for roughly 20 minutes before I went to work where I also cried while cutting up tuna heads with a massive electric saw.
While I knew I was done, I couldn’t help but wonder if everyone else was right. Would I go back? Did I just need a break? I trusted their experience over my own intuition. So over the years, I’ve applied for random jobs here and there in the field. Until 3 months ago I decided who was I kidding by doing that?!? I didn’t want the job I was applying for. I wanted more pay than they would offer me. I wanted benefits and more time off then they would offer. I was applying because I hadn’t accepted what I had told everyone else…I wasn’t going back. I was applying because a small piece of me had trouble letting go of the old me. I was applying because a small piece of me still believed that’s all I deserved. I was applying because it was easy. I was applying because I am scared, I’ll never figure out this thing called life, and if I had a career like that at least others would think I had figured it out. At least I’d be fooling someone. I was applying because everyone always expected me to eventually go back.
I officially stopped applying, even to the “really good” jobs 3 months ago. I stopped entertaining the option to even look at those jobs a month ago.
If people didn’t assure me I’d got back, this was just a break, they tell me I was brave. I didn’t get it. I’d tell them I don’t feel very brave, and I didn’t. I felt small. I felt lost. I felt like I was running and standing still at the same time. I felt like I was doing absolutely nothing but doing what I had in order to save myself. How was that bravery? It wasn’t bravery to me, it was survival.
I’ve come to see the bravery in it. I’ve come to see why that decision was so hard for me. I should’ve made that decision years prior, but I wasn’t ready then. I had to be ready. I had to try every avenue. I had to work myself to the point of basic survival. Leaving then was still bravery, but bravery to me would’ve been walking away the first time I started questioning if the career path was for me. Bravery would’ve been setting my ego aside years ago when the questions started popping up in my heart if I was still chasing the career for me…or if I was chasing the career for everyone else. Bravery would’ve been admitting a lot sooner the decision I made for 17-year-old Laura that wasn’t suited for 27-year-old Laura.
Instead, I let my ego get in the way. I got a boost every time someone complimented me with sticking to my dream. I got a boost every time someone said “Marine Biology, really! I always wanted to do that.” I thought I was doing something others couldn’t. I prided myself on that. It was that pride that took me too damn long to admit or even begin to question if this was still the right path for me.
I still consider walking away bravery even is the walking started with a giant shove out the door. I still consider moving once a year for the past 3 years brave even though I see it as normal and fun. I still see trying a new job, realizing it wasn’t for me and walking away bravely…even when I don’t know what’s next, but I move to a new town in a new city where no one really knows my name. I consider it brave. I’ll let people call me brave and fearless until I start living brave and fearless on my own terms! Until I start really listening to my intuition the first time. Until I start trusting myself over everyone else first. That will be when I find the brave and the fearless inside myself. When all I need is inside myself!
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