There are so many songs for me that won't be sung . . .

So the truth of the matter is that six days ago I heard the final decision on a job application that had been in the works since middle November. 

It seems that out of blue, and at this stage in my career, I was suddenly short-listed for a tenure-track job at Top 20 in the world university--pretty stunning since just about every podunk school west of East Pottawattamie State has rejected me.  It happens that the senior superstar in the department is one of my closest colleagues and mentors, which doesn't hurt in the search process, but even better, in the snake pit world of academia it can be crucial to have a senior colleague to act as mentor and guardian (experience from Singapore weighs heavily here).  So, as near as I can work it out, it came down to two people and I was one of the two, and the decision wasn't an easy one.  It appears they took six weeks to reach a decision, even after it was all boiled down to the two of us.  The university sits in a beautiful small city with mild weather, lots of nature, bike trails everywhere--the biking capitol world, as it is billed.  The salary was out of this world, right up around 100k/year.  Now, for a guy who has been partially employed for nearly three years, with a wife and two kids to support, this was an amazing turn of events to have this nearly within reach.  But the punchline is that I didn't get it.

Lots of mixed emotions, of course.  Great to receive the validation, shitty to know I was so close without getting it.  Can't talk about this kind of thing with work friends.  Maybe my baseball friends will understand.