A Recovering Grad Student

I'm not sure the actual point in my life that I became "couch-potato" level sedentary...oh wait, I can...it was my dissertation. 

In my life, I can remember having only one lasting, steadfast dream.  I wanted a PhD.  Not ardently.  But realistically.  I've always been "the smart one" and a PhD felt like climbing the Everest of intellectual capacity.  I wanted to see if I could do it.  I wanted certification for my smartness

[Sidebar: A PhD does none of those things.  I know that now.  My disappointment in that was so real and vast.  If I'm disillusioned about academia that's why.  It's like arriving to a mountain across the globe that you've dreamed about climbing your whole life and wallpapered your room with posters of only to realize once you're there that it's made out of garbage.  I can rant about academia (and probably will) longer than I should.  Sidebar over.]

Basically for ten years my usual schedule involved waking up around 9am, getting a cup of coffee, sitting at my desk and reading/writing/thinking for six hours.  Repeat the cycle 3 times.  Maybe sometimes around 10pm, I'd go out to a bar with friends and drink beer until the wee hours.  Then the next day would start hung over.  In between, I'd pepper that schedule with whatever food I could muster.  Sometimes I was extremely healthy, sometimes I ate whatever crossed my path.  Sometimes I would work out like a crazy person.  Mostly I would not.

This was an epic 10 year moment.  And I kept telling myself, "It's not good but it's temporary.  You're doing the best you can."

And I certainly was.  For the last 3 years of that 10 year moment, I worked full time.  So now the schedule was governed by an 8-hour day of sitting at a desk and stress about how much I didn't love working.  Then going home to the reality of having to sit back down at my desk for 6 more hours to read/write/think.  Later on in the process I started working out with a trainer (Cristina was the best) and I loved doing it but I knew I couldn't sustain it enough to make me feel good about it.  I was mentally and emotionally exhausted.

Though it nearly killed me, mentally and physically, I finally finished that goddamn thing.  I climbed Garbage Mountain. And the relief was massive, washing over me for about a month like the coolest, most satisfying, most brilliantly colored wave of awesome.  My head felt so much lighter and my heart was utterly relieved.  But about two months into my reverie, an incredible, all-encompassing fatigue set in.  Massive fatigue.  It was hard to move.  It was hard to think.  Nothing felt satisfying or worthwhile.  I could find no comfort in any facet of my life.  Surprising to me, that I finished that turmoil nearly two years ago and there are days when I still feel exhausted by it.  

[Sidebar: Even writing this, I can't deny this sounds very much like depression.  I actually went to counseling for years while I was writing my dissertation and it did help very much.  Neither my therapist nor I ever called this depression.  It wasn't clinical.  It truly was abject exhaustion which, honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if more "depressed people" were actually suffering from.  Sometimes we all just need a BREAK.]

The first year after was the worst--almost worse than the actual last days of the project itself.  I made a treasure trove of bad decisions the worst of which was that I took an awful job that I would grow to hate over that upcoming year.  I use that word sparingly but the amount of anger and resentment I still carry about it makes me think it's appropriate. The stress of a bad relationship with a boss who I thought was an ally but really wasn't combined with a much longer commute through city traffic meant I was suffering the same level of stress, lethargy, and anxiety I had with my dissertation just with a different view out my window, usually car window.

And then I left that job (WIN!) with nothing else lined up (LOSING!) and staggering student loan payments (LOSING MORE!) and a complete loss of self really (LOST!); I had this tabula rasa moment about my life.  I didn't know what to do.  I lost a couple long-time friends (that maybe now I see were not as 100% wonderful as I had thought).  I didn't know how to do anything.  I couldn't focus, reading books was torture, and smiling wasn't really happening enough...if ever.  I was drinking a fair (but not corrosive) amount. I was having a literal hard time getting out of bed, not because I wanted to kill myself but because I was so fucking tired. 

And then there was rest.  Last summer, I was unemployed for about 3 months.  And it was the best time of my life.

To the chagrin of friends and family, I forced myself to not sweat not having a job.  I sent out some applications, I perused the job boards, but I limited the room for that kind of anxiety to 2 hours in the early morning.  The rest of the day was about addressing what had become the me that I didn't want to be anymore; a me who was a downer, who couldn't fit into any of my clothes, who looked like crap.

I slept like I've never slept before.  I wore yoga pants and didn't worry about it. I started actually caring for myself.  I had the luxury of really thinking hard about what I needed.  And the fruits of that glorious 3-month process were some of the most promising, most enlightened thoughts and feelings I've ever had.  I started eating better.  I started working out with more regularity.  I tried to assign guilt less when I didn't come through on things.  I tried to be more discerning in what I did, prioritizing fun, lightness, and joy over anything else.  I started playing tennis and sweating like a crazy person, outside, with new friends.  I could feel a surge of normalcy hit.  And I was so grateful.  Something was working.

The path still was (is) not clear but the recognition that this is my life and I only have one to make of it what I will was so strong.  I had never thought that before.  I now have the seeds of a much more interesting, worthwhile journey.  

In the meantime, I got another job, I started looking for fun and joy much more intentionally, I'm getting kinda good at tennis, I dyed my hair completely purple.  I started minding myself, thinking through the moments I need to push and the moments I need to just give myself a pat on the back. I've rebounded in a lot of ways and I'm working on planning rebounds in others.  But thank God for that 3 months last summer.  

It was nothing short of divine intervention.

Praise Jesus and Namaste.