Because my job is so far from my loved ones, I feel like I tend to miss out on a lot of stuff — especially when it comes to my friends. Most of my college friends settled in the South, which is not exactly accessible from Toronto in terms of time and money. Much as I want to go to every wedding, every weekend get-together, and every birthday party (especially this year when we’re all turning 30!), it’s hard for me to justify a $750 plane ticket from Canada on my pitiful postdoc salary. Plus, you know, there’s this book thing I’m supposed to write, and also the work that I’m being paid to do. I can’t just bail on a Thursday afternoon whenever I feel like it.
That’s life. I’m at an early stage in my career, I don’t have money to burn, and jobs come with responsibilities. Most of the time that doesn’t bug me, but given the grim academic job market, it’s hard not to wonder if I’m neglecting my friendships for a career that I’ll probably have to give up anyway. I also wonder if I’m trying hard enough to be the kind of friend I want to be.
So this week, when I found out that two dear friends of mine are getting hitched the same weekend as a big conference in my field, I decided to ignore my usual travel anxieties and tackle a whirlwind schedule of flights that will (knock on wood) get me to my Friday afternoon session in the Midwest and then deposit me in South Carolina exactly 2.5 hours before the wedding starts on Saturday.
Under most circumstances I’d have written off a flight that cuts it so close; so many things can go wrong, especially when you have to make a connecting flight. But these are close friends, I really want to go to their wedding, and this is the only way I can make it without completely bailing on my professional obligations. Flights may be late, it’s possible I’ll get stranded at my connection, but I’d rather be sitting on a tarmac *trying* to make it there than sitting in the conference hotel Starbucks feeling sorry for myself because I’m missing out, you know? Sometimes you take a chance on the last-minute flight for friends who let you drink their vodka and stayed up with you until 2 a.m. the night your parents announced they were getting divorced.
Does anyone else find it hard to balance money and work on the one hand with all of these 20- and 30-something events on the other? Also, a query for the fashion-inclined: what exactly does one wear to a November afternoon church wedding in South Carolina? (Preferably something that travels well, just in case I need to change in the airport bathroom during my layover.)
Petite Chablis 