Married to a Professor

At the end of each month, I inevitably fall in to the trap of self-pity and bemoan my husband's choice of employment. There's nothing like an empty bank account to illicit resentment. I mean, we didn't go into academia for the big bucks, but still, it's always a little discouraging. But this is exactly when I need to stand by my man and our life and recognize the roses among the thorns, and there are many.

Last week, for example, I was able to sit in on one of Mark's classes up on campus. I sat right in front. Russian 342: Tolstoy's Major Works in Translation. They were discussing War and Peace; an honorable heavyweight. I could feel the students' eyes on me: the wife of their lecturer, their grader, their blessing and curse. I wonder what they were thinking?

I know what I was thinking: how did I get this lucky?

You might say that I fell in love with this man while he was teaching. I've never seen anything like it. He's so good. I almost blush just thinking about it. I love how he scrunches his curly hair in his palm when he's moving from thought to thought. I love how he sees through the text, right through to the essential. I love his questions. I love his humor. I love the big words he uses so easily and genuinely. I love how much he wants it to matter to his students. I love how much it matters to him.

When I was a student myself, I casually romanticized the lives of my professors. I naively assumed that when they weren't teaching, they were in their offices, tapping their chins in scholarly thought or reading the books that lined their office walls. I thought they were leisure brains. I didn't know that their jobs were fraught with many of the same responsibilities and unavoidables that weigh on others in more mainstream professions: office politics, paperwork, producing, etc.

Teaching, unfortunately, is such a small part of it.

There are such high expectations of publishing and university involvement. And like most involved in anything in the humanities, especially writing, it's intimately gruelling work. It's so personal. My man has many sleepless nights. He takes it very seriously.

When it comes down to it, I need to remind myself that this is what I want. A simple, but good life. I like that my husband reads and writes and then teaches about it for a living. I like that he can come and go to us as he pleases. I like that his hero is Chekhov.

So we'll probably never make it on that culinary tour of Italy or have more than one car, an old minivan at that, but he's home a lot, right where I want him. It's a modest lifestyle in economic standards, but it's rich in personal luxuries.

And besides, my baby looks so fine in a vest and tie. So fine.