On the Periphery

I am an adjunct, and like most adjuncts, I have more than one job.  Apparently I had eight jobs last year.  As I sorted through the W2s and 1099s that have recently arrived in my mail, I discovered the real breadth of my 2015 employment.  I had actually forgotten some of the “gigs” I had; it turns out that last year I worked as a college writing instructor (at two colleges), a paralegal, a substitute teacher (at two high schools), an SAT prep course instructor, a proofreader, and a stable hand (yes I mucked horse stalls).  While it’s hard to gauge how many hours per week these various jobs translated into, it’s easy to see that when I add the numbers up, my “salary” is nowhere near where it should be.

The question is what should my salary be? As someone whose career looks like a battered patchwork quilt, it’s hard to say how much money I ought to be making at this point in my life.  I’m 53 with a Master’s degree in English education, but I am fairly new to teaching (it’s my fifth year).  Before teaching, I worked for many years as a freelance journalist; prior to that I did medical transcription; prior to that I was employed as a legal assistant.  Oh yeah – and I’m a law school drop-out.  Woven in between and around these endeavors were many part time jobs ranging from telemarketing to tutoring.  I’ve led book discussions and writing workshops.  I’ve called myself a publicist and an editor.  I can’t claim to have worked at a real “full time job” in more than 25 years.  That’s what having three children does to a woman who wants to stay home and raise a family. 

But I am not complaining.  I am actually one of the lucky ones – I don’t have to support myself. 

And the truth is, I actually like having a number of jobs.  It keeps life interesting; it allows for a certain amount of freedom.  But maybe it’s only the illusion of freedom.  I mean, in order for adjuncting to work at all, I need to do something else.  Obviously, I’ve given up on the idea of teaching full time, as it appears unlikely that this opportunity will ever present itself.  And I think I’m okay with that because when I try to imagine what my life would be like now if I had been tenured faculty for the past 25 years, it seems impossible that I could have maintained that status.  It would have meant making a serious commitment, and I’ve never been very good at that. 

What I am good at is taking on new challenges.  And it is a challenge to work, as I have, on the periphery.  But it’s the place I feel most comfortable, most myself.  In the end, we have to be true to ourselves.  Every semester I relish the challenge of learning new names and making important connections with individuals into whose lives I will only briefly pass.  So yeah, I’m an adjunct (and lots of other things too) and I wouldn’t want it any other way.