I was young when I fell in love, and like all those involved in youthful love affairs, I was filled with passion and idealism. I was sure that my love would defy the odds, and last forever. The object of my affection wasn’t movie-star handsome or rich, but was intelligent, sophisticated, and noble. I knew when we met that our values were in alignment. In my undying devotion, I worried constantly about whether I was good enough; it never occurred to me to wonder if my love was good enough for me.
The love I am referring to is academic life. And I was so enchanted by the promises it held of a rich and satisfying marriage to the ideals of the ivory tower that I embarked on the long courtship that is the pursuit of a Ph.D. I wanted it all: the husband (academe), the marriage (tenure), the house (a modest little office, lined with books and maybe a nice Windsor chair), and lots of babies (books, students). I thought I was a pretty good prospect, and I worked hard at making myself attractive for the love of my life.
Unfortunately it was not to be. My story is a familiar one: I always found employment in academe, but only as an adjunct, being paid piecemeal for whatever courses needed to be taught that year. Sometimes I worked full time, sometimes part time, but I remained an adjunct, no matter how many tenure-track positions I applied for. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.
And so it might have continued were it not for one very odd curveball that life, that erratic pitcher, threw at me: At age 41, I encountered the world of high-performance driving on racetracks. I wrote a column in 2009 about the lessons I took from the racetrack to the classroom.
But over the months that followed, I also discovered an entirely new me: someone braver, more adventurous, more assertive, and, somehow, more authentic to my true self than the mild-mannered professorial persona that I had cultivated for so long. The new me reveled in the acquisition of a new set of physical skills—ones that allowed you to pilot a car at top speed around a twisty course of bends and turns. More important, the new me found in the stinky, noisy, testosterone-infused atmosphere of the racetrack a self that chafed at the restrictions imposed by academic life.
I began to lose interest in the faculty career path on which I had frankly stalled. Learning that there was more to me than being a wife, mother, and professor was an eye-opening discovery. The skills I learned at the racetrack helped me see myself in a whole new light, and in that glaring high-beam I made a startling realization: I had let myself be persuaded that my entire self-worth was tied up in being a success at the only career I had ever attempted. I loved teaching, but it didn’t love me back.
When another professor friend heard my stories about the racetrack, and all the new ideas I had discovered about myself, and about life in general, he said, “I think there’s a book in that.”
And I realized: He’s right. So I wrote it.
I took a rare unemployed semester—the first I’d had since my daughter was born 11 years earlier, since adjuncts don’t get sabbaticals—to write a book about my experiences on the racetrack. I found that I had tapped into yet another self I had not known was there: a creative and authentic artist who had things to say and the courage to say them.
The experience was so liberating that I realized, too, that I had become worn down by the need to keep doing research, keep publishing, keep presenting, in order to keep myself current and in the running for any new tenure-track jobs that might come along. I also realized I was tired of writing about other people’s lives and other people’s accomplishments.
And finally, finally, I said: enough.
Turns out my faculty career wasn’t akin to marriage after all. It was, instead, like dating a really bad boyfriend: the one who only calls you when he has no one better lined up, and nothing better to do. He keeps you waiting by the phone, night after night. Finally, he calls you for a date. You teach a seminar, and it’s great—you’re witty and interesting; the students adore you; your colleagues acknowledge you and treat you as an equal. You are lulled into thinking: “I finally have his attention, he’s going to see how loyal I’ve been, what a great partner I am, and make this relationship permanent.”
We all know how that story goes: It never works out. If I’d had a girlfriend who was treated by her real boyfriend the way I was treated by academic life, I’d have told her in the strongest of terms: “Get rid of him! Find someone who appreciates you for who you are and wants to make a commitment.”
I loved being a faculty member, surrounded by smart young people and interesting colleagues. But I realized, at long last, the problem really wasn’t me: It was academe.
So I wrote my manuscript, which came out in a torrent of pent-up emotions and oddball metaphors (see: bad boyfriend, above). My newfound assertiveness gave me the emotional wherewithal to hunt down an agent, deal with a publisher, promote my book, and even get it reviewed in The New York Times. That book was Fast Girl: Don’t Brake Until You See the Face of God and Other Good Advice From the Racetrack, and it related the transformational story of what happened to this middle-age mommy/professor during her first year at the racetrack. Remarkably, the book spoke not only to men who like cars, but also to women who understood that it wasn’t about the cars, it was about the journey.
My two new loves, high-performance driving and writing, gave me the courage to see that my old love did not have to define me. Breaking up with academe was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but it was also one of the most liberating. Since then, I’ve completed another manuscript, and started a third.
Will I ever go back to teaching? My new love, publishing, is as fickle a lover as academe. Clearly I have a thing for hopeless causes. So what would I do if my old boyfriend came crawling back, and asked me to go out with him again? I might do it, if the situation was right. But I think I would keep it casual, and I know I would no longer maintain any illusions of marriage. The course of true love never did run smooth.
