(63) crying in the library / homecoming
on friday, the 13th of december 2024 i finally* submitted my PhD dissertation (*albeit two years in advance). it was almost a year to the date when i learned that i should anticipate its submission, due to political-ish-faculty reasons.
the past year was a year of sacrifices. i put many projects on the back burner (including, most importantly, the finalization of the conversion process; but also activism projects, namely stepping down from the board of the national childbirth rights association, general involvement with the jewish community and slacking off a bit in my synagogue attendance, paused learning hebrew, limited myself from taking on new courses and learning opportunities, etc.).
personally, for our family, it was a year of sacrifices as well, mostly for j and a, as j was pretty much carrying the burden of childrearing mostly on his own, totally on his own during all sundays and holidays. a. also felt the shared familial burden of my commitment to the degree, as she spent most of her 4th year of life with a present-yet-absent mother. even her school teacher noticed the effects. we sure did at home. and that is time i won’t get back.
my very active social life dwindled and was more time-constrained. save for going a week to mozambique in spring, and a week in the south of portugal in august, the only consistent period of rest i had was shabbat (and even that was often consumed with minimal social and family obligations).
save for the minimum activism stuff, the minimum freelance stuff, and teaching commitments, a handful of conferences and a paper here and there, the sole intense focus of active creation was the dissertation. so even my writing and other creative outlets dried up. at some point, after summer, when i committed full-time to writing the thesis, pausing teaching and all other engagements, i even lost most of the capacity for reading for pleasure, rather succumbing exhausted to mindlessly watching tv in the evenings, and even then i didn’t have the mental wavelength for watching films or new embracing any new shows. (i still ended the year with over 100 books read, not counting the PhD ones). i didn’t have the headspace for small talk or intimacy of any kind.
this narrowing of focus in this single-axis output led to a kind of chilling in my reptilian brain as well. it hindered my physical appetites (libido, hunger, and even the physical enjoyment of exercise, save for walking and running). it froze all other forms of physical expression. it messed up my circadian rhythm.
even if i was enjoying the ride, the medidative focus, the intensity, at the end of the road my body started breaking down a bit, with my immune system being the first to go, escalating what would otherwise be harmless viruses, and close to submission with actual physical suffering from postural stasis and repetition, muscular and skeletal strains that led me to the er twice in a week to get some shots and push through. it was time to put an end to the madness.
from previous experience (namely the forsaken annus horribilis of 2017, whereby quitting my big law job, my main occupation, which i had identified with personal value and identity, i literally wanted to die), i was expecting to pay a high mental health and personal cost for this single-focused endeavor, so antithetical to my personality (being someone who mostly enjoys diddle-dallying in a large array of occupations). so it came as a big surprise when the post-submission depression didn’t settle in *so far*
from the beginning of december, when i finished my supervisor’s version, i decided to treat myself and get some new romantasy books that i had been promising myself to read, to get my mind off anything remotely serious when i submitted. and to my surprise, they unlocked a part of me that had been brewing for a while.
i surrendered myself to the cozy vibes of the season: the yule tree and holiday decorations went up, the fairy lights as well, i got some scented candles and some new perfumes (that i can now actually smell, thanks to quitting smoking for good in august!!! yay), made perfume my new special interest, got into the zone and started reading again with the drive and pleasure and deep focus of my teenage years.
my sense of smell reawakened. my libido too! and albeit this volition to “return to the world of the living” intensified tenfold, what i felt the most wasn’t a frenzy, but an overall sense of ease and relaxation, a homecoming of sorts.
on the one hand, i thought i would lose myself in the phd writing process and pay a hefty mental toll price for it, which didn’t happen. on the other hand, i really believed that the contentment i would feel from completion and submission would be pride in the dissertation itself, as well as excitement for being close to the achievement of the degree, advancement of my career, etc. and i really thought that this would make me feel somewhat possessive/maternal towards the physical dissertation? but neither of these came true either. (i know the text of my dissertation has its positives and negatives, and i couldn’t care less about it. i haven’t even given it much thought this past month, if i’m being honest. and that really surprises me!)
i am shocked at how well it went, even with all the hiccups of the final six months, that i made it to the finish line within the ridiculous deadlines i established. and that i didn’t lose myself in the process.
at the end of this journey, somehow, in the ebbs and flows of reading, creating, focusing, solitude, what i came to find was… me.
i know this sounds super cringeworthy, and i am struggling to put it eloquently (or even coherently) into words, but post submission i felt — and feel — mostly ease, and comfort, and a massive and overwhelming feeling of gratitude.
on the thursday before the submission i spent the whole day crying in the library, fat tears of joy, rolling down my face in the research office, falling heavy on the final books i decided to consult and add before submission. i got especially emotional over a final text that my supervisor recommended that i read, about the legal profession, that he had written on a “homecoming” moment of his own. it read:
“Today I am fifty years old. Ahead of me I have no frontiers, no borders, only the horizon.”
i was overcome with the outpouring of love and genuine joy coming out in waves from people around me, from my innermost circle of friends and family, to outer circles (like the sheer joy of the librarians when i told them i was submitting, the cheers from the admin people at students affairs when i called to ask for some details related to the submission, the abundant help and assistance provided by other colleagues who had gone through phds themselves). i feelt cheered, supported, loved, all the way to the end.
and this is the most self-indulgent and absurd thing i’ve ever written, but for the first time ever i didn’t feel unworthy of all this love, or ashamed for being the subject of other people’s endearment and joy. i didn’t skirt away from the reciprocity. alas, in december i became an insufferable, joyful mess.
it was heartbreaking and heart-building at the same time, to spend this long of a while tolling away, focused, alone. along with therapy (which, wisely, was probably the only “extra” activity i didn’t put on hold), i think along the way, i healed from many fundamental wounds — wounds that i didn’t know i had.
the sacrifices made me step into my own shoes in a way that i didn’t expect to occur. by being strict with priorities, i ended up tuning out of a lot of external noise that occupied my brain, and muddled the perspective i had of my life (namely external family troubles and narratives which took so much space in my life, and even my own marriage, as well as things beyond my control with friends, etc). and the silence and the focus opened up the required space to do some much-needed inner work, and to just spend A LOT of time with myself. talking to myself, thinking to myself, writing to myself.
the combination of intense discipline, and the focus, and denial, the solitude made me really key into my lunar side, and d have no choice but confront my innermost darkness. and instead of recoiling in anger, i think i found peace. instead of feeling shame, i liked what i saw. i saw me, whole, the dark and weird and the quirky, the funky and the imperfect, and i was more than ok with that.
i recall hearing other +30-year olds (and older) saying that when you are in your mid-thirties you get this feeling of homecoming and being comfortable in your own skin, so i guess that is also what happened here.
so many things clicked, all at once. i regained my sense of smell, stumbled and found my personal style, rediscovered hobbies i loved, reacquainted myself with my physical and emotional and sexual self. this sounds like therapy-talk, but i really do feel i am mostly honoring my inner child, who i used to be but thought i had to move past in order to grow.
on the one hand, i am a completely different person from 2023 (and esp. since 2017!), and on the other hand, i have never been or felt more like myself. i feel that i have come out of the cave! alive! thriving! and finally made peace and grown beyond the trauma of the past events.
i think for the first time i really saw myself and liked what i saw? and then i loked around, to the people around me, to G-d, to my husband and chosen family and friends, and the whole world, and it all made sense, and all was coherent, and i loved everything i saw.
beyond an egotistical point of view, for the first time, i think i really believed in what the closest people around tell me about myself, and believe that they see me whole and take me for who i am, dark gnarly bits and all, and that is another added layer of peace as well. i stopped feeling like an outlier, or a singularity, and my perception shifted to becoming fully part of the narrative.
i think that this process of tearing down old perceptions, that really began post-m’s death in late 2017, and rebuilding new foundations, which deepened in Michigan 2018-2019, finding judaism, and then with the transformative effects pregnancy and motherhood in 2020, my marital crisis in 2021-2022, reached its final stages with finding a sense of purpose and professional/personal fulfilment 2022-2023, and now with the integration of all of these processes and bits through the motions of writing the PhD itself in 2024.
all this to say, this year was life-changing. and i am surprised-yet-proud to say it had little to do with the PhD, or my career or external validation, but it was the culmination of several inner processes that were long overdue. the circumstances, and the mental and emotional work that happened externally, allowed for the meditative tools and the space for these separate inner processes to unfold and come together.
i didn’t do this alone: i had financial support from my mother and husband to allow for the focus on the phd, paid support from housekeeping and therapy, support from my in laws with our daughter, pharmacological support from taking anti-anxiety medication (just knowing that i won’t have to suffer again unnecessarily took a weight i didn’t even know i had off my shoulders), the best support system, the best friends, the best husband and daughter and parents and in-laws… i am so so grateful to all of them (and also, *cringe* grateful to myself for making right choices along the way lol) for making this happen.
i submitted the phd on friday the 13th and took off running! straight from the law school to a’s christmas school play, and then to synagogue, and then to having a celebratory late dinner with j and a… next day a went to my in laws and i went and had an absurdly expensive and good dinner with j (to celebrate), then a got back home super sick, then i had surgery on my foot for another precancerous mole (that came back negative, albeit precancerous and another cancer marker that officially puts me at the highest risk for skin cancer), seeing friends, then we had a minor car accident, and then it was christmas and hanukkah, and then i got super sick with a respiratory virus from my sister on chrismas, then we went to the south of portugal for a week, and the surgery site got infected (another er trip, another round of antibiotics, the works), so we returned for housekeeping and preparing the next leg of our holidays (as our housekeeper has been back to her home country for legalisation purposes, so we’ve been managing things on our own which SUCKS), and then we spent a week in ireland relaxing and cruising the country… so save from those weeks of a lot of revision work in between handing over the dissertation to my supervisor (and dad, and j), i didn’t really have the time to think about this all, take some deep breaths alone and make sense of this transformation. who will i be from now on? what does the future hold?
this was also the first day that i was alone . a. went to school, also for the first time in a month, and i can’t believe i’m done! it’s been a month off from all forms of work, but a lot of events, and unexpectedly intense physical recovery, and i only know think i have a footing in this new reality. as i precipitously come close to the mid-mark (33 out of 76 (!!) days off, and now i have 43 left), the semblance of a home-based routine seems to get back. yesterday was the first day i exercised in over a month, the first time i’ve written here.
this week i go back to activism meetings, to in-person therapy, and conversion classes. i’m hosting a babyshower for my friend a. tomorrow, i will be seeing friends, going to therapy, have a tattoo appointment on friday with a friend of ours and then shabbat with them, shacharit saturday morning, date night, and on sunday we go to the south of portugal for the mamma blessing of our dear friend c.
next monday i have the only proper work engagement (a postgraduate class i am teaching), and then my agenda is free save from little events on weekends and recurring engagements. many shabbats at our house, friends luncheons… that kind of thing.
i plan to only get back to hebrew classes in march, after i have my definitive class schedule, and only go back to the family office weekly meetings then too.
so this, now, is the final month of enjoyment, contentment, relaxation. i need to put on a rotation all the new and crazy workout (and other non-physical) classes i want to try. i want to schedule weekly dates with my husband (with whom i’ve never been as in love and happy with, i am glad to say) and mom-and-daughter dates with my dearest a. i want to schedule coffee dates with myself, (!!) to go to a coffee shop, get tea, and read the morning of the afternoon away. i want to spend more quality time with friends and family. i want morning teas, reading at coffeeshops, parking far and walking through the city, lazy lunches in lisbon, driving unhurriedly, going to the park, listening to music, making music, spontaneous coffee dates with friends, people watching, scenic drives, reveling in dolce fare niente.
and when i get back to work i want to finally experience a more normal work-life balance, with a structured routine, but also lots of time for my nuclear family, lots of homecooked food again, grandiose shabbatot, social activities, nature walks, spontaneous trips… whatever.
professionally there are many projects i’ve left hanging. i want to change things up a bit in terms of the organizations that i am a part of, and give my time to. academic endeavors, writing endeavors, but we will see what happens when we get there (i only plan to really sit down, project and plan my professional life by the end of february, to really give my head a good chunk of time to recover from the rigors of the last months). i will also be moving on from talk therapy to freudian analysis (again), which is exciting.
we also have big family plans this year, to expand our family (eek!) and maybe to finally invest in the plot of land and tiny house we’ve been dreaming of for a while now. and also, in other happy news, i was invited to become a part of the synagogue’s board! this is exceptional since i haven’t been to the beit din yet, (but hopefully will be going soon, so that’s another huge milestone of 2025 looming in the horizon, if not the most important one!), but i am super happy and grateful to be able to contribute more meaningfully to the everyday life of my community.
and i think that’s it for now. phew! i can’t believe i am here. i am content, happy, fulfilled, at peace, really excited for the future. i am so happy that i not only survived this past year, and been able not to break myself over the PhD, but rebuild myself along the way. i never would have imagined, and could never have done it without my friends, or this space.
so, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
all my love
f.