I don't think it's possible to understand how difficult graduate school is unless you are in or have been in graduate school. I feel so completely overwhelmed that I have learned to go outside my own body and watch with fascination as it sits and worries about things.
I mean, in three years, I have written a book. A book! While working and taking classes full time. That is not an easy thing to do.
Now that the book is due on Tuesday, I am trying to "finish" it. This has been the singular most excruciating and rewarding task of my life. When I was seven, I wrote a two-page book beginning ,"I have led such a terrible life. My little sister won't eat enyfing..." Now, twenty years later, I have written a much longer book that my mother will probably also stuff in a Rubbermaid container under her bed.
It feels very strange to say I wanted something my entire life and then to do it. I am at this challenging cross-roads where I know I have six weeks of torture left, but I also see the glowing diploma at the end and then, beyond that, I have this scary space where I have to go about the business of doing what I wanted. I have to stop dreaming of being a writer and actually deal with being one.
I'm not sure it will get easier. Now I have to actually take my book and send it to people called "agents" who will ultimately control whether my book remains a pile of computer paper or gets a bar code and an ISBN.
After years of nomadic temporary employment, advanced degrees, and chocolate ice cream, a rugger with a love of knitting and a cyclist with no domestic skills signed a Ketubah and bought a house in Pittsburgh.
2 comments:
Congratulations and good luck, Katy! You are a talented writer and I've enjoyed keeping up with your blog since finding it through Blondie's links. Reading about your grad school and rugby experiences really helped me through some of the worst of my own grad school stresses and woes. I hope the last six weeks go smoothly.
Bird by bird, Katy. You know you can do it!
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