How would you handle this situation?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I am unable to fall asleep. Tonight’s hobby-horse is my impending move. I graduated with my Ph.D. earlier this month. Professorship application season, in my field, is in September. If I am very lucky, I may begin to get interviews in February. February is the same month that my landlord will want to know if I am signing another yearly lease or not. I know, from having the same experience last winter, that he absolutely must have an answer by March 1. Gee golly, I hope I have an answer by then. But I probably won’t. So I will probably not sign another lease. So I will have to vacate my house on June 30, next year. Because this is a college town, the landlord will only agree to 1-year leases beginning and ending during the summer term.

Assuming I do get a professorship to start next August, I suppose I will have had a chance to pick out a house in my new town, by the time I have to vacate this house. If I don’t get the professorship, I’ll have to scramble to find a different house in this town–which isn’t actually so hard. So I guess I don’t really need to worry about where my stuff will go. It just… would be nice to not have to scramble, and stay where I am. Me and my house full of furniture.

Sorry. Not thinking too clearly. It’s 2:45 a.m. and all that. My question is: does anyone have better ideas about how to handle all this? One option for the March 1 deadline, if I am not sure whether I will be staying in town or moving, is of course to sign another year’s lease and then sublet, if I do move.

2

Maybe your landlord would be willing to sell you an option to renew later. He gets some extra cash, you get a little more time to decide…

3

Make a list of all possible options for handling this problem.

At the appropriate time, narrow down these options to ones that suit you best.

When the time is right, chose the option which suits you best.

Write down everything you can do to be prepared for this eventuality onto one list.

Do everything on the list. Then relax. You’ve done all you can do.

Through all of this, practice observing yourself living with uncertainty. It doesn’t have to be threatening at all. It can be a head rush. Everything will fall into place and the scramble unfolds only one day at a time after all.