Over on Phinished.org, it's something of a truism that it takes two years to get back to 'normal' following the completion of a PhD. I passed my defense 15 months ago, and all I know is, at this point, I'm nowhere near normal again. The aftermath has been an extended exercise in dealing with burnout - not just academic, although that's there, but a broad, all-encompassing burnout that includes family and everyday life. Once upon a time, I was on the borderline-OCD side of organized and efficient; today, I can barely be bothered to put the mountainous piles of mail and papers that seem to collect everywhere into my catch-all of an office. Procrastination has devolved into one of those problems that is affecting my quality of life, and I seem caught in a spiral of self-recrimination and vague despair that shows no signs of abating.

So, when people ask me if I'm going on the job market this fall, what I want to say, in no uncertain terms, is HELL, NO.

And this, actually, represents something of a sea change for me. When I had first finished, flush with the excitement of talking about my research with people who seemed to enjoy and appreciate it, I was sure that the academic life was for me. A summer of ruminating and coming off of months of near-constant stress and work tamped that desire a bit, but it lingered into the fall of 2011 and even contributed to a deepening sense of my own lack of (scholarly) worth. And then I managed to get adjunct work at the community college up the road, teaching my own (broadly speaking) subject and getting paid (however little) for the privilege, and suddenly it didn't seem quite as important to get tenure track work.

And now, with 15 months under my belt post-PhD, and some attention paid to general trends in hiring (and firing and tenure), I think it's safe to say that I simply do not care enough about the profession to try and do it in the pursuit of tenure. To my mind, the people who make the best professors (and by this, I'm not talking - just - of teaching ability, but the whole thing: teaching, research, writing) are the ones for whom it's a burning passion. The ones who wake up itching to write and who go to bed with a (subject-relevant) book in hand. And this is Not. Me. 

Which isn't to say that I no longer care about my subject(s). Rather, I just don't find that I am prepared - especially at 45 and with two young kids at home - to sacrifice much to pursue my research or teaching interests. Would I like to teach something even nearer and dearer to my heart than the introductory classes I'm fortunate to be teaching right now? Absolutely. Will I live if I never do? Yes. And most of the questions I have for myself are equally easily answered. Am I prepared to turn my full attention - or most of it, at least - to the pursuit of tenure? No. Am I reconciled to moving my family from a comfortable, if not lavish, life here to one where I'm guaranteed work for, at the most, six years, and then all of that directed towards the securing of longer-term work? 10 years ago, I might have been. Now, with universities slowly shifting to one-year term contracts for the infinitely mobile young professor and looking for reasons not to grant tenure, I cannot see myself dragging my family through all of that. The risk of coming out on the other end without tenure is just too high. Add to that the fact that my field - and my sub-field, and my other sub-field - is one of those that journalists like to drag out as an example of frivolous scholarship, and I can't imagine that it would make sense to pursue a tenure-track professorship for anything less than love of the profession.

Not. Me.

So I make my peace with my adjuncting and try to decide once and for all if it makes any sense to try to publish. Is it wrong of me to embrace the adjuncting, given that so many seem to view it as a key reason that TT jobs are drying up? In my particular circumstances, it makes sense; it gives me the chance to be in the classroom without requiring so much of my time and energy that I can't be there for my kids when they come home from school. It brings in enough money to make it a nice supplement to my spouse's income, which - while hardly ideal - is better than the just-giving-it-away of academic publishing. At the very least, the adjuncting effectively pays for conference travel. I'm fully aware that for people with no security net - no health insurance, no outside income - adjuncting is horrible, unrewarding work. The pleasures of the classroom - and there are some, just as there can be real nightmares as well - are no compensation for the utter marginality of adjunct teaching. For me - fortunate enough to be married to a (presently - fingers crossed!) employed spouse whose salary supports us comfortably and whose benefits are generous - it's not bad work, at least in the short-term.

Of course, this is little more than navel gazing. At the end of the day, I have the leeway to choose not to go on the TT job market, and I so choose.