(57) simple problems, simpler solutions
i am 300 pages along.
in the last newsletter i was moping and moaning that i felt utterly alone, and now i’m better. now that it happened it seemed like a very obvious and simple solution to the problem i was facing before, but i am extremely proud to say that these were resources i looked for organically, and that occurred to me outside of therapy. which means that these past many years of therapy are finally working, i think?
to fight the inextricable postgrad-loneliness, i’ve been spending some quality time doing PhD stuff other-than-writing (active rest days in writing the dissertation, anyone?), such as attending vivas, going to meetings with my supervisor <3, exchanging e-mails, literature and references with colleagues, and still bearing the load of the final leg of my teaching duties for the term (being the jury for oral exams, proctoring written exams, grading exams… etc). i really can’t recognize myself in the following statement, but i have been loving just spending time in the law school, meeting faculty mates and other researchers in the uni’s bars, in the library, in the halls… and just spending time chit chatting, exchanging impressions, discussing our projects. it feels very *healing*
i am feeling very supported by the community surrounding me, and even if it feels like a dramatic change in the emotional landscape of before, whereas most of the direct support came from my closest friends and family members, now a big chunk of my emotional needs are being met by like-minded persons who have gone through or are going through the same thing. like pregnancy and motherhood, i guess?
i have also found a wonderfully supportive community in my synagogue, and going to services last week (when i was on the fence about going) was very emotional and put out a whole new, brighter outlook on this journey. before i had been saddened feeling that my spiritual and community life was being a bit neglected (which included the postponement of the beit din). now, i’ve made peace with it. curiously, (or not, because jewish communities have notoriously higher levels of education), many of OJ’s fellow congregants also have phds, and so they could relate to my afflictions too.
tomorrow one of my good friends is having her PhD viva and i’ve got to admit i am kind of nervous for her, especially after having witnessed the ruthlessness of last week’s defense, and in turn i get a bit anxious for my own (to be determined)
sometimes i get mad that in life i feel like i am always jumping from goal to goal having the next stage in mind. like, when i was in the throes of the curricular year of the PhD all i could think about was being where i am now, writing the damn dissertation; in the year that i have been writing it all i could think about was the submission and delivery; now that these deadlines all approach i am even looking forward, to the viva, defense, etc.
it makes me mad that i feel trapped in this vicious rat race of objective objective on end, and even my friends who read me here may feel a bit bored with the constant syllogisms “this is bad now, but when this is done…” “i will do that when i am done with this”… my good friend sp a few months ago asked me pointblank, like she read all of my newsletters and didn’t understand half of it, but i mostly talked about academic/professional stuff, and she asked and stressed, was i happy? and i was like… hell yes. this is what i enjoy and what i like. but what would it feel like to not live in perpetual motion? what would it feel like to surrender to a state of being, intentional stasis?
i don’t know if i’d be me then, but i can’t say i haven’t tasted and enjoyed it either. i have a trauma-response to rest, because associate stasis with my annus horribilis of 2017, when i had to quit my law firm position in devastating circumstances, was unemployed, feeling worthless, the deep hole of depression & suicidal ideation, that followed, the sa i indulged in to maybe not *kms* in any other way, and then culminating on m’s completed s*. and that was maybe the first long unintentional pause from adulthood that i knew. (all went to hell!) and the only way i got out of that hole was by moving… in all ways. and moving and moving, my body, my soul, physically relocating across the ocean and then back…
but then, upon returning from michigan, healed and content and having made peace with life, and regaining traction for my real life, the one that pans out in this sunny corner of the Atlantic, came a pregnancy with a lot of unknowns, and the pandemic, and i guess i was never as full and content and rested and completely fulfilled as i was then, just being, not really doing nothing (save from baking amelia in my womb, thank you), not having much work, not going out, not socializing, nor producing, not anything…
and i am trying to be moderate and not have black and white thinking about myself, maybe like all people i am more than a sum of parts, and have bits that tend to hold on to motion and be inherently dynamic, and add value through producing, but other parts of me that have value and i should cherish them and take them at face value? (i know the answer is yes)
i guess writing my dissertation (this second baby of mine) is teaching me some things about moderation after all!
since i am absolutely failing, and purposely not reaching for the ludicrous deadline of the shitty first draft that i set for myself, of the end of july, (and G-d willingly, i hope i am free of teaching commitments next term which will let me really take advantage of september to revise and finish the dissertation), i have been leaning into enjoying the time and process of writing this.
as long as i am in my office, i am nerding out to my heart’s content, like diddle dallying in phd doomscrolling, snooping other dissertations, stalking researchers and potential members of my jury, opening irrelevant literature, downloading more literature than i need… and i feel that in that apparently superfluous use of time i have been getting some gains, other than for my mental health (kinda important, though!), that actually translate in improvements in my research, methodologies, and writing.
i am still pretty confident, yet WAY more humbled, in the feasibility of THE set deadline (that i set for myself, of delivering a final version for my supervisor’s approval by the end of september, and submitting in october). and i am still shrieking away from the hard toil and labor of having to write some boring chapters, that are central to proving that my methodologies work, and extremely reticent in wrapping up more chapters, as i am in that maddening stage where all literature seems like it might fit in the scope of the thesis and i am petrified to think i will completely be ignorant of key literature in my field (since i am dabbling in so many branches of the law, this feels very much like an inevitability at this point). and yet i am loving it all in a masochistic way.
my schedule and routines are simple (and simplified by j taking a to school and bringing her back these final weeks of july, thank heavens for my saint husband): i wake up with a., take a protein coffee in the morning, i get immediately to my office and i write most of the day, have an actual lunch break (!!!) where i eat a large veggie-forward chopped salad in the sun, work out in the afternoon when i finish work, OR or both in the morning and afternoon (such a radical switch after YEARS of being a hardcore 6-to-9-before-your-9-to-5 person; and NEVER having lunch breaks), and then relax and be with my family/cook/watch tv/read in the evening. i have even been going to dates with j.
in between all of this… because of the routine, the solemnity of the moment, the demands of this period of my life, i have gotten a bit more selfish, and introspective, and a bit guarded/wary with relation to friends and family, outside of my nuclear family.
my friends are precious jewels of love and comprehension, but i still feel this deafening distance between me and others. like some people complain that they feel this way with relation to their childless friends after they give birth (thank G-d I never felt this, remotely), i have this feeling of absolute incomprehension/misunderstanding at all times with some of my closest people. and worse, the feeling of being constantly lost in translation. and those feelings are very uncomfortable for me, in such a fragile state, they grate me in ways that i have no emotional wavelength for, right now, or the mental space to work through them. it’s a phase.
unfortunately for me i recharge in quiet and solitude, so even when i am free (namely on shabbat) the last thing i feel like doing is seeing people. j has been a lion in protecting my peace and space and keeping me shielded from too many things, going to events alone with a., letting me chill out alone at home. because if i don’t recharge i feel like one could really go mad with this stress, even if it is the good kind.
it is perfectly doable, of course. after all, i really am nothing special and, more, i have a pretty shitty stamina and can’t do long work days. but even while anticipating it, i wouldn’t have otherwise known just how much of an effort (cerebral, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, in terms of family life etc) it really is to see through an individual research project of this magnitude. it brings me to my knees every day, depleted, falling asleep mid-sentence in the couch, or drooling with an open kindle smacking me in the face. at least i’ve been getting the best sleeps of my life (only topped by those unbeatable fueled by anti-nausea medicine pregnancy sleeps).
in so many ways, this phd journey resembles pregnancy. the solitude, the individual process of creation, even the isolation that came with the pandemic versus the forced isolation i am in now, the underlying emotional processes, and it really feels like eventually i will give birth to a (very niche and boring) baby. and actually, i have subconsciously crafted the timeline so that submission is due sometime around a’s birthday.
like pregnancy, i am sure i will miss this time of my life for the rest of my days, and look fondly at the long workdays in my sunny office, feel nostalgic over the smell of protein coffe, the taste of iced electrolyte water in my bougie stanley cup and think, boy, was i happy then and didn’t really know it! but i do know it. and i am taking the time to appreciate, and record, and memorialize just how special it is, these moments, how incredibly lucky i am for the set of circumstances and persons who have come together to create this moment in my life. how grateful i am for all of their efforts.
especially for my great-grandparents’ who were in academia, for inspiration, my parents’ financial and emotional support, my in-laws and j for their logistical support, a. for her love and understanding, my friends for their time and patience, my colleagues for their companionship. for my village. without them, none of this would be possible.
and of course, i am ever thankful for G-D, from whom all blessings flow.
Anyway, tl;dr: last time i was troubled by feeling phd-loneliness and i found a very practical solution for it. and i am happy and grateful, even if going slightly mad.
because sometimes the shortest path between two points is really straight — at least in Euclidean space, but that’s a discussion for another time, or at least another (idea of) space
f.
ps: @ my drinking friends, i dare you to take a shot every time you read “phd” in this newsletter