Letting Go

Letting go of the final research project for my degree feels like dropping my child off at daycare for the very first time.  Nervously, I wonder how my child will be received--will she be welcome?  Will she be accepted?  My project feels very much like a child that I've nurtured, coached, and raised from infancy.  Now my attention turns from the carefully crafted autoethnographic words to other projects and people.  Those in academic land hold it and give a mark.  The mark means something, but not everything.  My senses live in completion for the moment and I simultaneously savour its departure and cry for its absence.

Too Much Information?

Today I begin to suspect my reluctance to hand in my final project for graduate school has to do with my tendency to remain a private individual.  My project deals with personal details of traumatic events; I struggle with revealing too much or not enough.  Reality TV says it is ok to reveal everything, but I don't feel that way.  I feel exposing myself 100% cheapens or lessens my traumatic experiences.  My project reveals information that I simply do not want the whole world to know.  I am not ashamed, but my boundaries tell me how far I should go.  And so...I will tell--but not all.  If you ask, I may share, or I may not.  I will let the moment decide.

Procrastination and Me

And so the deadline looms--June 15--and my final research project for my Masters degree still happens to be in the editing states.  I admit that the final throes of the editing process eludes me; I'm on draft #200 and am growing weary of reading it.  Yes, my professor warned that our chosen topic would wear us down--"so pick wisely," she said.  I did.  I'm done.  I mean I'm done in my heart and head--just not on paper.  Of what am I afraid?  Completion?  Forced to end a chapter and start another?  Perhaps.  I notoriously hate endings of things that I love.  Why can't it go on forever?  Maybe I'm not ready to move on.  The date seemed so long ago when I arrived fresh faced and terrified of beginning a masters.  So now I sit and play on twitter and my "Plants vs Zombies" game...anything but editing my final draft.

Getting to Gratitude

The idea of gratitude constantly eludes me.  Why is it so hard? In the midst of bemoaning my lack of freedom and the harm inflicted on me in the past, I find it hard to focus on being thankful with what I already possess.  Yesterday, I caught a glimpse of what it feels like to be content and grateful.  True, I do lack certain freedoms that others take for granted, but they can be won in a court of law.  True, I did suffer harm, but I'm still standing like so many other brave women out there.  True, I have an ongoing issue that may never get resolved, but that makes me stronger. In that moment, I did feel free...nothing could touch me.  I am almost finished graduate school (whew!), rock at wii fitness, and own the ability to combine the emotional with the intellectual.  I danced last night--truly joyful to be alive.  Now, that state will probably come and go, but I will try and hold on to it a little longer...and recognize it when it's here.