Thanks to the magic of DVR, Scott and I finally got around to watching this season’s finale of Castle. For those of you who don’t watch the show, it’s a murder-mystery-romantic-dramedy about the cases solved by and romantic relationship between a homicide detective {Kate Beckett/Stana Katic} and a mystery writer called in to consult {Rick Castle/Nathan Fillion}. For those of you who do watch the show and, for whatever reason, haven’t seen the finale…spoilers!!!
But however the season ended and wherever the next season chooses to go, the dilemma facing Beckett and Castle at the end of the season is a complicated one – but one very familiar to the career woman. To sum it up: Beckett is staring in the face of the professional opportunity of a lifetime, a chance to tackle some of the biggest possible cases and where her actions would have an enormous impact. However, it would require her not only dropping everything at her current career but moving to Washington, D.C. from New York, and determining the future of her relationship with Castle.
Any kind of career change requires some detailed thought. About a year and a half ago, I made the decision to leave the operational army and become an army systems analyst, a totally different career field. It meant that I would be trading line level leadership positions for high level staff jobs, walking patrols for a desk and a computer, using my brain for long-range strategic planning and not short-range tactical planning. The benefits were huge in my mind. However, it also meant a very different assignment process, different location opportunities, more competition within a smaller population of officers, and a different promotion path. It passed my decision analysis, but there was someone else’s process it needed to pass as well – that would be my then-fiance.
In the show, Beckett doesn’t talk to Castle about the career change she’s considering until she’s already snuck away to Washington D.C. to conduct her interview. In my mind, that’s a huge mistake. I made that mistake when Scott and I were first dating in Hawaii and I was leaving the island for grad school. Fortunately, we worked things out later, but – and if I had a dollar for every time this was true – if only we’d just talked about things, we could have avoided a lot of confusion!
That being said, Castle and Beckett still have to work out their future. As my husband can attest, it’s not easy being married to a career woman and knowing that her career could potentially yank you all the way across the country, especially when you’re trying to stay on top of a career of your own. It takes a special kind of man to adapt to that and roll with the changes as they come. However, it’s possible.
So to Castle and Beckett – and their writers – let me just say this. You’ve got a strong woman who’s got the opportunity to make a difference, and wants the opportunity to try. You’ve got a successful man with a career that depends on his creativity who can work from home or wherever he wants, who has the resources and the wherewithal to travel, and lives in a day and age where modern communication makes face-to-face communication possible on anything from TVs to computer screens to cell-phones. My husband and I have been here, and we have made it work. You can make this work! Do not screw up my favorite show by making Beckett choose between love and a career when she doesn’t have to!
We are told too many times that there’s a balance between the two, that career woman must choose between love and a career, that they can’t have both. We call that false dichotomy, and we lose an opportunities when we turn this into a trade-off instead of trying to make the two complement each other. Even though we’ve only been married a year, I’m firmly convinced that this can work, but the number one rule is that to make it work, you have to talk.
I’m really excited to see where this season goes and how the writers continue exploring this interesting dynamic. In the meantime, for my career women out there, I’d love to get your two cents! How are you making it all work? Do you feel like you have to choose between love and a career? How do you handle the challenges that come up?
