{"id":673,"date":"2010-08-05T20:56:13","date_gmt":"2010-08-06T01:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/?p=673"},"modified":"2010-12-29T22:23:55","modified_gmt":"2010-12-30T03:23:55","slug":"m2nyi30es-background","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/?p=673","title":{"rendered":"M2NYi30ES \u2013 Background"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>The idea of moving is generally unattractive. \u00a0And that\u2019s for normal people. \u00a0For me, any move is just another in a long series of moves. \u00a0People ask if I am an \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Military_brat_(U.S._subculture)\">Army brat<\/a>\u201d if I absentmindedly reveal that I attended seven different elementary schools. \u00a0I wasn\u2019t an Army brat. \u00a0That status would have offered a measure of comfort by contrast to the vagaries of my childhood since military life imparts a sense of stability. \u00a0Olive drab is, after all, olive drab, the world around.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, for me each move was just another jarring adjustment. \u00a0Finding myself always \u201cthe new kid\u201d got easier after the first few moves because I knew I\u2019d have to fight somebody and stopped trying to avoid it. \u00a0I just got it over with in the first day or two. \u00a0(A guy has to make friends somehow, doesn\u2019t he?) \u00a0But after these childhood experiences, and after getting out of my parents\u2019 house and off to college, I really grew fond of having some sameness in my life from year to year.<\/p>\n<p>Then I married a woman who decided she wanted to become a doctor. \u00a0Medical training, by its nature, requires regular uprootings. \u00a0The first step, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Brody_School_of_Medicine_at_East_Carolina_University\">medical school<\/a> at <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/East_Carolina_University\">East Carolina University<\/a> in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Greenville,_NC\">Greenville, NC<\/a>, was \u201con her.\u201d \u00a0She would be only 90 minutes away, and Greenville\u2019s many seductive charms were just not sufficient to entice me to leave a stable job. \u00a0I visited on weekends, to \u201cbe there for her\u201d while she slept and studied. \u00a0Four rather dull years later it was time for the first move I couldn\u2019t get out of&#8211;from the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Research_Triangle\">Research Triangle<\/a> of North Carolina to <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Charlottesville,_Virginia\">Charlottesville, VA<\/a>. where my wife \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Residency_(medicine)#Matching\">matched<\/a>\u201d for her residency program in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Neurology\">Neurology<\/a> at <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/University_of_Virginia_Health_System\">UVA Hospitals<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Moving van\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp-img\/memoir\/moving-van.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"146\" align=\"right\" \/>This was a significant life event for me. \u00a0I had lived in and around <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Chapel_Hill,_North_Carolina\">Chapel Hill<\/a> for 25 years and had expected to stay there indefinitely, but this move actually was attractive for one main reason. \u00a0My previous wife had taken my son to Charlottesville about a decade earlier, and by now he was into his adolescence. \u00a0The idea of spending more time with him was attractive, and it seemed like a good time for a boy to have his Dad around, so I tried to be positive. \u00a0I also thought that, being an experienced teacher with credentials in several subject areas, I could get a job just about anywhere.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->That plan did not foresee the local school district\u2019s decision to institute a hiring freeze just as we got there. \u00a0Anticipating future expansion, the district decided to handle their few vacancies by shifting people around within the district, so my applications went pretty much ignored. \u00a0The hiring freeze stayed in effect for the entire three years we lived there, so my \u201cmoving luck\u201d was staying consistent. \u00a0I filled my days&#8211;but not exactly my bank account&#8211;substitute teaching in the district schools. \u00a0I also got into refereeing college and high school soccer games all over the western part of Virginia. \u00a0Since both jobs involved taking crap from kids, I was well supplied with that, but not much else.<\/p>\n<p>The three years in Charlottesville passed peacefully. \u00a0When your wife is working 120-hour weeks, you tend to have a lot of peace around the house. \u00a0But as the residency program came to a close, I was made aware that this would not be the end of our travels. \u00a0A three-year fellowship at <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sloan-Kettering\">Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center<\/a> in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/New_York_City\">New York City<\/a> would follow the residency program, and so we would be moving again. \u00a0What is the plural of fait accompli? \u00a0Oh, yes. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/fait+accompli\">Faits accomplis<\/a>. \u00a0I should know; my life has been full of them, courtesy of my lovely little \u201clife partner.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The idea of living in NYC was not so unattractive, really; I just knew the move would be a God-awful affair. \u00a0Sometimes I hate being right, but I wasn\u2019t quite right, actually. \u00a0The move was way worse than God-awful. \u00a0I would have loved God-awful. \u00a0This move turned into one of those marathons of endurance and forbearance that seem improbable when considered in the abstract, but when you find yourself living through them, well, it is all too real, and your only choice is simply to persevere.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The idea of moving is generally unattractive. \u00a0And that\u2019s for normal people. \u00a0For me, any move is just another in a long series of moves. \u00a0People ask if I am an \u201cArmy brat\u201d if I absentmindedly reveal that I attended seven different elementary schools. \u00a0I wasn\u2019t an Army brat. \u00a0That status would have offered a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,12],"tags":[19],"class_list":["post-673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-googlemaps","category-memoirs","tag-past"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=673"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":733,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673\/revisions\/733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}