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My wife and I are going on a dinner date tonight. It will be the first time in two years that the two of us have had a date night alone. We are still very much in love, happily married, and living together, we just don’t have the opportunity to go out on dates.
Two years ago, when I started graduate school, we knew that sacrifices had to be made. My graduate program includes teaching, so I take courses and teach courses, but I need to keep my appraisal company to pay the bills (mortgages don’t defer, unfortunately). Date night was one of the first things to go. We still had to walk the dog—two, eventually—and Saturday brunch at our favorite coffee house. We still had family dinners and lazy Sunday morning breakfasts. We still had some time to be just us.
This year, my wife started graduate school, too. And that time disappeared in a hurry. Part of her graduate program includes an internship, so she goes to school three days, interns three, and still has the business end of the appraisal company to tend to when she gets home at night. We have become reliant on the crock pot for dinner, and our twenty-one-year-old daughter for the dishes, and our twelve-year-old son to… well, we just hope he doesn’t add to the stress. The Saturday brunches were the first to go; Saturday is for schoolwork: for reading, and analyzing, and highlighting, and underlining. A year ago, Saturday morning was for 8 AM yoga and brunch and grocery shopping. It was for sleeping in and recovering. Now, it is for learning.
This is temporary. We will not be in graduate school forever. I am in a three-year program and my wife in a two-year program. This type of workload cannot and will not go on indefinitely. We have been in school, in some capacity, since 2008. In one more year, we will both have master’s degrees, and be ready to move onto the next phase of life.
The lingering question, the one that keeps me up at night, pacing the floors, peering out through the blinds, is whether or not this extensive albeit temporary schooling has had a permanent effect on our family. Our son, twelve now, most likely cannot recall a time when I wasn’t in school. How has our absence these years been on him? Does he feel like he has missed out on life? Little league, or Saturday mornings in the park? Does he feel betrayed by our lack of presence, or is this all he has ever known? He wouldn’t admit it if he felt underserved. He isn’t that type. Our daughter might, but he wouldn’t. This keeps me up at night.
Date night left first, followed by Saturday brunch, followed by weekday nights around the table, eating dinner and then watching Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. Saturday trips to the library, or Target for Pokemon cards, or the craft store for whatever project he is working on. We still have Friday nights as a family. My wife always makes tacos, and we watch a movie as a family. That movie is usually Harry Potter, whichever movie in the series comes next, as we rotate these from first to seventh, and then back to one again. Jack and I always have Sunday morning breakfast at Village Inn, where he usually beats me at our weekly round of JellyBall. And we have the dogs.
I don’t know if this workload is good for us. I don’t know if being in school indefinitely has helped or hurt our family. I don’t know if I would recommend going back to school so late in life. I know this lifestyle isn’t for everyone. Many days, most days, I question if it is right for me, for us. Last week, my wife brought up the possibility of an opportunity to do a Ph.D. program. My son remarked, “If you think that would make you happy, then you should do it.” I don’t know where he gets this. I don’t know if he was born the beautiful soul that he is, or if he learned it from watching his mother. I don’t know if he learned it in spite of watching us, or because of watching us. I don’t know.
Its never too late to go back to school. You are never too old to stop learning. I can’t imagine a day when I will no longer be a student, when I will no longer spend Saturdays reading novels, or essays, or Latour rhetorical theory, or Deleuze and Guattari, or Heidegger. How else will I spend my Saturdays? I don’t know how much longer I can pace the floors at night worrying about the future, and the present. I don’t know about how I will spend all of those Saturdays. But this Saturday, if not again for a long time, I am taking my wife on a date.
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Photo credit: Getty Images