A couple of weeks ago I somewhat unexpectedly found myself unemployed. While it's a temporary loss of income, it's unclear how long it'll be. This left me frantic and stressed and scrambling to find work. Any work. OK, almost any work. Finding something casual and temporary has proved difficult. And while I haven't given up hope, I've realised it's more practical for me to be putting my energy into finding new work in my field, even if it means forgoing an income for a little bit.
As stressful as this has been, having this time has made me realise how badly I needed a break. It's not exactly ideal to be taking a forced, unpaid, break, but, it's made me spend some time taking stock of my life.
Some other things have happened as well, one of those being that I finally let go of a relationship that I'd held on to for too long. You see, I've got a long history of staying in relationships for longer than I should. In fact, if my life was a Country Western song it'd be called 'I should have left you long ago (but I stayed)'.
Walking away wasn't easy (or pretty). It was painful and messy and left me with some things to process. Fortunately for me, I've also got plenty of time to sit and reflect on how I got myself into that mess and why I stayed for so long.
What I realised is, the year before I met my ex was insane. There was so much big life stuff happening, and on top of that lots of ridiculous bullshit stuff that I was responsible for dealing with, that I'd just been surviving in crisis mode. There were health issues, housemate issues, housing issues, relationship issues, family issues, thesis issues, friend issues, work issues, money issues, immigration issues... At baseline my life was pretty stressful, but there was always some additional thing I also had to deal with. And every time I'd overcome whatever calamity had arisen, a new one emerged.
Things were finally starting to settle down for me when I moved into my own place. My housing issues were coming to an end, as were the housemate issues. Work was stabilizing, my income was fairly steady, my health was improving, my thesis was being examined, I had a plan of action for my immigration stuff, my family and friends were alright, and I was single and excited about getting to be single in my own place. I hadn't quite gotten the balance back into my life of focusing on myself, but it was on the horizon.
A week after moving into my new place, I met someone. I hadn't planned on it becoming a thing, I wasn't looking for it to become a thing, but it became a thing. He was handsome and charming and after what had been a very difficult year, a perfect distraction from dealing with my own life.
So I focused on him and on our relationship and for awhile, forgot about myself. It didn't last though, the distracting myself from myself. Once the magic wore off, my life was still a mess and I had the added burden of an unsupportive partner to deal with.
There were some practical reasons for why I stayed longer than I should have. But mostly it was fear. Not fear of being alone; I've been single most of my adult life and know that that's quite a comfortable and fun place for me to be. No, the fear was of having to deal with the mess my life had become. I wanted someone to hold my hand, to tell me it was going to be OK. But what that resulted in was actually me holding myself back.
I've said it before, and I suspect it's a lesson I'm going to keep re-learning for a long time: life is much easier once you let go and just face the fear.
It's been hard. It's been really hard. And it's going to continue to be hard for awhile to come. But having the chance to get back in touch with myself is worth all the hardship that's made it happen. Being forced to take a step back, I feel like I can see clearly again. It's still early days, but I've got a much better sense of what I want for myself and what I don't. I can see the parts of my life that were allowing me to grow, and the things that were holding me back. I am coming up with a plan of action for how I want to live my life now. I am thinking about ways to rebuild that will allow me to have the balance that has so sorely been lacking for far too long.
For starters, I need to get back to writing.
Monday, March 2, 2015
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Post PhD Paralysis
I got the results from my thesis back a month ago: passed with revisions. It's a result I'm very pleased with. My examiners comments give me lots of food for thought and encourage me to take my thinking further. And while I don't agree with all their suggestions, agreeing is hardly the point of academia.
But when people ask me how I'm celebrating, my response is "I'm not." I thought I'd be thrilled to see the result of 6 years of hard work come to a successful end. But I'm not. For the most part, I feel apathetic.
And that's been really confusing for me. Confusing and stressful. Because as I try to sort out what this apathy is about, I'm faced with that big looming question of "What next?" And that's a question I haven't really had an answer to. Like Jack Sparrow in Dead Man's Chest, my compass doesn't know where to point.
When I made the decision to move to Australia and pursue postgraduate studies 8 years ago, the idea of being an academic thrilled me. I was desperately unhappy with my life; study was an out. It was a way to a better future. And while I thought that better future would involve living the my-work-is-never-done lifestyle of a hotshot academic, a lot has changed for me since then.
During the process of doing my PhD my priorities shifted. Through a lot of hard work I gradually built a life for myself that makes me happy. A life outside of my PhD. And while I wanted to make living my new life my priority, I didn't know how to shift my thinking of what it was I would be getting out of my PhD in the end. So even though the prospect of being an academic hasn't exactly thrilled me for some time now, when people asked me what I want to do post-PhD I still say "Research, through a university."
Because my personal life was not a source of pleasure for me, and because I couldn't really imagine myself wanting something more than I wanted a career that would take me away from the things that made me unhappy, I never gave much thought to other career options. I'd be an academic. I'd work hard and long and travel and my ideas would be interesting and engaging. That's what I thought would constitute a good life. A life where I would be constantly striving on to the next big thing.
As I've said, a lot changed for me. I stopped looking to the future and started living in the present, and I discovered that I like it in the here and now. When I think about it, I used to buy into the idea that life has these trajectories that we go down and if you mean well things just kind of work out. But that's not how the world works. Times are bloody tough out there! I've come to terms with the fact that life is often shit and you just have to deal with it because it doesn't matter who you are or what you've been through, life doesn't owe you a fucking thing. Whatever you want from life, you've got to work smart to get it. And be prepared to roll with the punches when it doesn't work out anyway.
What type of a career I have has become a lot less important to me. Instead, I want to focus on enjoying my life. My career goals have shifted to finding something that will pay me enough to be comfortable while managing my debt load, and flexible enough that I can continue pursuing the various adventures life throws my way. I realise that I'm basically chasing after a unicorn, but I want my life to be a lot more than my job! The problem with academia is, it's a particularly exploitative industry, with the situation growing worse by the minute. I've seen the changes that have occurred over the past 6 years, I do not like where things are heading!
I'm writing this from a farm house in central Queensland, because of that whole prioritising living my life thing and because, if you let it, life takes you on some funny adventures. And while I'm meant to be studiously working away on my thesis revisions, I've mostly been sitting here, letting my anxiety about the future grow into paralysis. So yesterday afternoon I was delighted to go sit in a tractor for a few hours and feel anxious there instead! While scouring Facebook, I came across this article that a friend had posted. And I don't know why, but something in me clicked.
The thing is, I love doing research. I love engaging with theory. I love writing. And I am good at all those things. They bring me happiness and make me feel alive. But I don't want to be in the academic rat race. I think ultimately what I would like to do is work in, or with, the community sector. I like the idea of doing work that has practical, tangible benefits for actual people. I don't really know what this role would actually look like, but I feel like I've got at least a vague sense of a goal of something I can work towards. And I know that it is going to take a lot of work to get myself into the career path that I want. It's not going to happen overnight and I probably will have to make some short term sacrifices with living my life to achieve the long term goal. That's OK though, because my compass knows where to point.
But when people ask me how I'm celebrating, my response is "I'm not." I thought I'd be thrilled to see the result of 6 years of hard work come to a successful end. But I'm not. For the most part, I feel apathetic.
And that's been really confusing for me. Confusing and stressful. Because as I try to sort out what this apathy is about, I'm faced with that big looming question of "What next?" And that's a question I haven't really had an answer to. Like Jack Sparrow in Dead Man's Chest, my compass doesn't know where to point.
When I made the decision to move to Australia and pursue postgraduate studies 8 years ago, the idea of being an academic thrilled me. I was desperately unhappy with my life; study was an out. It was a way to a better future. And while I thought that better future would involve living the my-work-is-never-done lifestyle of a hotshot academic, a lot has changed for me since then.
During the process of doing my PhD my priorities shifted. Through a lot of hard work I gradually built a life for myself that makes me happy. A life outside of my PhD. And while I wanted to make living my new life my priority, I didn't know how to shift my thinking of what it was I would be getting out of my PhD in the end. So even though the prospect of being an academic hasn't exactly thrilled me for some time now, when people asked me what I want to do post-PhD I still say "Research, through a university."
Because my personal life was not a source of pleasure for me, and because I couldn't really imagine myself wanting something more than I wanted a career that would take me away from the things that made me unhappy, I never gave much thought to other career options. I'd be an academic. I'd work hard and long and travel and my ideas would be interesting and engaging. That's what I thought would constitute a good life. A life where I would be constantly striving on to the next big thing.
As I've said, a lot changed for me. I stopped looking to the future and started living in the present, and I discovered that I like it in the here and now. When I think about it, I used to buy into the idea that life has these trajectories that we go down and if you mean well things just kind of work out. But that's not how the world works. Times are bloody tough out there! I've come to terms with the fact that life is often shit and you just have to deal with it because it doesn't matter who you are or what you've been through, life doesn't owe you a fucking thing. Whatever you want from life, you've got to work smart to get it. And be prepared to roll with the punches when it doesn't work out anyway.
What type of a career I have has become a lot less important to me. Instead, I want to focus on enjoying my life. My career goals have shifted to finding something that will pay me enough to be comfortable while managing my debt load, and flexible enough that I can continue pursuing the various adventures life throws my way. I realise that I'm basically chasing after a unicorn, but I want my life to be a lot more than my job! The problem with academia is, it's a particularly exploitative industry, with the situation growing worse by the minute. I've seen the changes that have occurred over the past 6 years, I do not like where things are heading!
I'm writing this from a farm house in central Queensland, because of that whole prioritising living my life thing and because, if you let it, life takes you on some funny adventures. And while I'm meant to be studiously working away on my thesis revisions, I've mostly been sitting here, letting my anxiety about the future grow into paralysis. So yesterday afternoon I was delighted to go sit in a tractor for a few hours and feel anxious there instead! While scouring Facebook, I came across this article that a friend had posted. And I don't know why, but something in me clicked.
The thing is, I love doing research. I love engaging with theory. I love writing. And I am good at all those things. They bring me happiness and make me feel alive. But I don't want to be in the academic rat race. I think ultimately what I would like to do is work in, or with, the community sector. I like the idea of doing work that has practical, tangible benefits for actual people. I don't really know what this role would actually look like, but I feel like I've got at least a vague sense of a goal of something I can work towards. And I know that it is going to take a lot of work to get myself into the career path that I want. It's not going to happen overnight and I probably will have to make some short term sacrifices with living my life to achieve the long term goal. That's OK though, because my compass knows where to point.
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
What is Love?
Just a minute ago I was walking down the street and had one of those moments where I remembered something about my ex that annoyed me and was overcome with a feeling of joy at no longer having to deal with this particular, very small thing. And I thought to myself "I mean, I loved her, but fuck she drove me crazy!" And then I thought "But did I really love her, if what I feel most about not having her in my life anymore is relief?" Of course I fucking did!
There is this idea that love is something elusive and grandiose, that it's only really real when it is big and intense and life threateningly permanent. Like when you would catch a grenade for someone, even though they wouldn't do the same for you. Well that's just stupid! Quite frankly, Bruno Mars, if someone is trying to kill me via grenade they're probably not going to stop because some fool got in the way and blew themselves up. No, if I've gotten myself into a grenade throwing situation I'd much rather my loved ones not get themselves killed delaying my assassination. I'd really rather they let me clean up my own mess, thanks.
Love is such a wonderful and complex emotion. Love can mean all sorts of things, can exist in all sorts of ways. But for some reason we seem really set on minimizing it, narrowing it down and restricting it. Why are we so scared of it?
I've been thinking a lot about relationships and love and how I want to live my life since my last blog post. I've been doing a lot of reflecting about how and with who and why I fall for people, what value I place on what types of relationships, and what different sorts of dynamics this produces in my life. That reflecting is still very much a work in progress. By no means do I actually have anything figured out.
What I have noticed, though, is that since I have made the active choice to stop buying into traditional relationship structures, I've had a lot more love in my life. Since I'm not restricted to giving all my emotional energy to one person, I've found that I have more energy to give everyone. And since I am not placing demands on a particular person to reciprocate my feelings/energy, I've got more emotional resources to draw upon and am less invested in trying to balance out emotional exchanges.
I feel like in traditional relationship structures emotions sometimes get treated like goods that can be bartered for. Like, "you gave me 5 apples but 2 of them were rotten, so I'm only going to give you 3 oranges." Now if someone gives me 5 apples I will appreciate them and give back to them how ever many oranges I can manage to give them. It might be 1, it might be 7. Maybe I'll give them something that's not even a fruit instead! The point is, instead of trying to exchange like for like with people, I give what I am able to give and take what they are able to give. If I want it, and vice versa.
There is less attachment to the love in my life now, though that is definitely still a work in progress! What I mean is, when I start to feel loving feelings for someone, I don't feel the need to clamp down on that person and make them be a part of my life in a particular way so much anymore. I'm getting better at just sitting with those feelings and letting them be there and letting the relationship be whatever form it will be. Again, it's something that I'm working on, not something that I have mastered.
It can be tricky because while I think about relationships and emotions as unstructured things, I quite often find myself in various types of relationships and having various types of emotions with people who take a more structured approach to things. To them, certain feelings or behaviours or whatever mean certain things, whereas to me, well, I've just summed it up in a new tattoo...
Loving someone doesn't have to mean anything more than that you care about them. Whether or not they reciprocate doesn't validate or invalidate your feelings. It's worth checking in with yourself to make sure that you're not investing too much energy on something that is not giving you anything back, you know, for self care and all that. And it's worth remembering that love is just an emotion. It doesn't have to be that big of a deal.
There is this idea that love is something elusive and grandiose, that it's only really real when it is big and intense and life threateningly permanent. Like when you would catch a grenade for someone, even though they wouldn't do the same for you. Well that's just stupid! Quite frankly, Bruno Mars, if someone is trying to kill me via grenade they're probably not going to stop because some fool got in the way and blew themselves up. No, if I've gotten myself into a grenade throwing situation I'd much rather my loved ones not get themselves killed delaying my assassination. I'd really rather they let me clean up my own mess, thanks.
Love is such a wonderful and complex emotion. Love can mean all sorts of things, can exist in all sorts of ways. But for some reason we seem really set on minimizing it, narrowing it down and restricting it. Why are we so scared of it?
I've been thinking a lot about relationships and love and how I want to live my life since my last blog post. I've been doing a lot of reflecting about how and with who and why I fall for people, what value I place on what types of relationships, and what different sorts of dynamics this produces in my life. That reflecting is still very much a work in progress. By no means do I actually have anything figured out.
What I have noticed, though, is that since I have made the active choice to stop buying into traditional relationship structures, I've had a lot more love in my life. Since I'm not restricted to giving all my emotional energy to one person, I've found that I have more energy to give everyone. And since I am not placing demands on a particular person to reciprocate my feelings/energy, I've got more emotional resources to draw upon and am less invested in trying to balance out emotional exchanges.
I feel like in traditional relationship structures emotions sometimes get treated like goods that can be bartered for. Like, "you gave me 5 apples but 2 of them were rotten, so I'm only going to give you 3 oranges." Now if someone gives me 5 apples I will appreciate them and give back to them how ever many oranges I can manage to give them. It might be 1, it might be 7. Maybe I'll give them something that's not even a fruit instead! The point is, instead of trying to exchange like for like with people, I give what I am able to give and take what they are able to give. If I want it, and vice versa.
There is less attachment to the love in my life now, though that is definitely still a work in progress! What I mean is, when I start to feel loving feelings for someone, I don't feel the need to clamp down on that person and make them be a part of my life in a particular way so much anymore. I'm getting better at just sitting with those feelings and letting them be there and letting the relationship be whatever form it will be. Again, it's something that I'm working on, not something that I have mastered.
It can be tricky because while I think about relationships and emotions as unstructured things, I quite often find myself in various types of relationships and having various types of emotions with people who take a more structured approach to things. To them, certain feelings or behaviours or whatever mean certain things, whereas to me, well, I've just summed it up in a new tattoo...
Loving someone doesn't have to mean anything more than that you care about them. Whether or not they reciprocate doesn't validate or invalidate your feelings. It's worth checking in with yourself to make sure that you're not investing too much energy on something that is not giving you anything back, you know, for self care and all that. And it's worth remembering that love is just an emotion. It doesn't have to be that big of a deal.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Deconstructing Relationships
I used to believe in soul mates. I carried around this rather depressing view that there is only One True Love for everyone, and that not everyone is lucky enough to find their soul mate in their lifetime. I used to believe this quite strongly, and I still find this ideology lurking in the back corners of my mind every time I find myself falling in love.
Let's not mince words. The idea of 'soul mates' is fucked up! It perpetuates this false hierarchy of romantic love being better/greater than any other form of love, which then gives people excuses to behave like horrible human beings to the other important people in their lives (I've just finished watching the entire Twilight saga, and Bella Swan I am appalled!). And it creates this vicious cycle of rather unnecessary pain when a romantic relationship ends. It's hard enough saying goodbye to a relationship with someone you've cared about... having that ending imbued with these bullshit ideologies that either a) the love you experienced in that relationship was not as grand as it could have been, or b) that you will never experience a love as grand again... Can we all see how incredibly unhealthy that is?
While I don't think I've ever officially outed myself as a nonmonogamist, it's no secret that I'm not big on monogamy. Like with my sexual identity, it's one of those things where I had the feelings and ideas, but not the language or the conceptual framework to make sense of it for a long time. It's really only been in the past couple of years that I've started to explore what alternate ways of doing relationships can mean.
For a long time I've envisioned myself - my future, adult self - as a fairly independent person who is not tied down to a single, committed relationship, but who has intimate friendships and sexual relationships with lots of different people around the world. And when my last relationship ended, I decided it was time to become the future me that I have longed to be. The funny thing is, after making that decision I pretty quickly realised I already am.
When I was at the IASSCS conference in Buenos Aires, I was introduced to the term 'Relationship Anarchy'. This concept appeals to me because it does away with the idea of relationship hierarchies and acknowledges the value in all different types of relationships. It is a thoroughly queer way of relating! What appeals to me most about this concept is quite beautifully described on The Thinking Asexual blog (linked to above):
The most obvious example of Relationship Anarchy in my life is my relationship with my BFF. Thus far, that has not been a sexual relationship, but it's been pretty much every other kind of relationship. We used to jokingly refer to each other as our life partners, but that's stopped being a joke. That is what we are. We love each other, we support each other, we accept each other for the flawed individuals we both are, we challenge each other to grow, we even go out on cute dates. Our relationship will never be exclusive; we will never limit each other's ability to connect with and develop relationships of any type with other people. We will always be of importance to one another, even though we may not always be the 'primary' person in each other's lives.
I think that there is too much emphasis placed upon the form a relationship takes, and not enough emphasis upon the content. Increasingly, I am trying to focus on what it is that I get from my different relationships that I enjoy. What pleasure do I derive from having someone in my life? I am trying to acknowledge what that is more, even if only to myself. And in doing so, I am hoping to make myself more open to the possibilities of those relationships expanding. To finding support, to being nurtured, to giving, to growing. Instead of saying "Oh, I don't have a boyfriend/girlfriend!" and looking for that type of relationship, I am thinking about what ways of relating I feel are missing from my life and considering how I can fulfill my emotional needs for those particular kinds of relating.
For instance, currently I have a longing to have a connection where I can be both emotionally and sexually vulnerable. There are people in my life that I am emotionally vulnerable with, and people I am sexually vulnerable with (being vulnerable is a good thing, btw, perhaps a topic for another day!); but it is harder to find somebody who can offer me both of these things, on an ongoing basis anyways. (Life is complicated! Getting two adults to sort their shit out so they can build something together is actually a pretty big ask.) While I want to have that kind of a connection with somebody, I don't need for them to be my 'partner'. And I certainly don't need for us to share our emotional/sexual vulnerabilities with each other exclusively! There is no reason for that connection to be the most important connection in my life; it is just one of many ways of connecting, and happens to be a connection I currently don't have but would like to have.
The thing is, life is fluid. Relationships shift and change, and the emphasis we place on any relationship does not stay constant for the duration of the relationship; especially in long term relationships! To illustrate, I have one close friendship that is over 20 years old. At times that friendship has been pretty central to my life, and at other times it has been peripheral. The content of our friendship has certainly changed as we've gone through life! We started out as quite different people, found ourselves leading parallel lives for awhile, and are now pretty much polar opposites of each other. This friendship has remained important to me, but of course its role in my life is different now. How we can offer each other support is different now. This friendship has less emphasis in my life, less energy put into it, right now. Because it's not what either of us needs right now. And that will change as it needs to.
I think that people get that about friendships, but act like it is somehow different when it is a romantic/sexual relationship. But why would it be? Emotions might be felt more intensely in a romantic/sexual relationship, but they are not somehow immune to the ebb and flow of life and individual needs. When two people decide to commit to each other in a romantic/sexual relationship, it is not as if they suddenly become one person; they are still two separate individuals with unique emotional needs and life circumstances. They are both on their own life journeys, even if they are each other's travel companions.
As I said at the start of this blog, I am not immune to the ideology of One True Love. I do not think that forming romantic/sexual partnerships is a bad thing, nor do I think that it is bad for that type of relationship to be of primary importance in a person's life. I think it is incredibly problematic to idealise that type of relationship though; to treat someone as if their life is incomplete for not having that type of relationship in it.
I don't know how I'll feel the next time I find myself falling in love. I think it will be different, because I am redefining what relationships mean for me and look like in my life. I have stopped looking for particular types of relationships. Instead, I like to meet new people and just see what develops with them. What sort of chemistry do we have? What can we share with one another? What journey will we go on together? I have found that this has made me open to a lot of different possibilities and has lead to some really beautiful experiences.
Along with forming relationships in new ways, I am also trying to engage with them differently when they end. I like to focus on what was good about the relationship. What pleasure did that person bring to my life? What joy? What did I learn from them? How did I grow? I am choosing to honour those memories, to think kindly of the relationships that are no longer in my life. To remember their beauty and to let them go, thanking them for what they gave to me for however long that lasted. I think we focus too much on the pain and the hurt when relationships end, and that's not helpful. I try to remember that all relationships are temporary, even if they last a really long time. Focusing on the good doesn't make the hurt go away, but it helps. Because any amount of beauty and joy that something brings to your life is a positive thing.
Let's not mince words. The idea of 'soul mates' is fucked up! It perpetuates this false hierarchy of romantic love being better/greater than any other form of love, which then gives people excuses to behave like horrible human beings to the other important people in their lives (I've just finished watching the entire Twilight saga, and Bella Swan I am appalled!). And it creates this vicious cycle of rather unnecessary pain when a romantic relationship ends. It's hard enough saying goodbye to a relationship with someone you've cared about... having that ending imbued with these bullshit ideologies that either a) the love you experienced in that relationship was not as grand as it could have been, or b) that you will never experience a love as grand again... Can we all see how incredibly unhealthy that is?
While I don't think I've ever officially outed myself as a nonmonogamist, it's no secret that I'm not big on monogamy. Like with my sexual identity, it's one of those things where I had the feelings and ideas, but not the language or the conceptual framework to make sense of it for a long time. It's really only been in the past couple of years that I've started to explore what alternate ways of doing relationships can mean.
For a long time I've envisioned myself - my future, adult self - as a fairly independent person who is not tied down to a single, committed relationship, but who has intimate friendships and sexual relationships with lots of different people around the world. And when my last relationship ended, I decided it was time to become the future me that I have longed to be. The funny thing is, after making that decision I pretty quickly realised I already am.
When I was at the IASSCS conference in Buenos Aires, I was introduced to the term 'Relationship Anarchy'. This concept appeals to me because it does away with the idea of relationship hierarchies and acknowledges the value in all different types of relationships. It is a thoroughly queer way of relating! What appeals to me most about this concept is quite beautifully described on The Thinking Asexual blog (linked to above):
What relationship anarchy hinges on the most, for me, is the equality it seeks to create across the relationship board, so that sexual relationships are not superior to nonsexual relationships and “romantic” relationships are not superior to nonromantic friendships, and that equality means that a nonsexual and/or nonromantic friend has the same amount of access to love, intimacy, physical affection, support, etc. That means a nonsexual/nonromantic friend is just as likely to become an RA’s life partner or one of their life partners. Relationship anarchy provides the kind of respect, security, opportunity, equality, and love that a celibate asexual needs, especially if they are single or they’re not necessarily looking for just one romantic life partner to fulfill all of their major needs in a traditional romantic relationship.When I think about my life and how I have done relationships, this is what I see. I see the friendships I have had that have provided me with more support (emotionally and materially) than any romantic or sexual relationship ever has. I see the joy (and the pain) that romantic connections have provided me. I see the fun and the playfulness that my sexual relationships have given me. And I see that all of these things overlap; that their boundaries are not clear and that I don't want them to be clear.
The most obvious example of Relationship Anarchy in my life is my relationship with my BFF. Thus far, that has not been a sexual relationship, but it's been pretty much every other kind of relationship. We used to jokingly refer to each other as our life partners, but that's stopped being a joke. That is what we are. We love each other, we support each other, we accept each other for the flawed individuals we both are, we challenge each other to grow, we even go out on cute dates. Our relationship will never be exclusive; we will never limit each other's ability to connect with and develop relationships of any type with other people. We will always be of importance to one another, even though we may not always be the 'primary' person in each other's lives.
I think that there is too much emphasis placed upon the form a relationship takes, and not enough emphasis upon the content. Increasingly, I am trying to focus on what it is that I get from my different relationships that I enjoy. What pleasure do I derive from having someone in my life? I am trying to acknowledge what that is more, even if only to myself. And in doing so, I am hoping to make myself more open to the possibilities of those relationships expanding. To finding support, to being nurtured, to giving, to growing. Instead of saying "Oh, I don't have a boyfriend/girlfriend!" and looking for that type of relationship, I am thinking about what ways of relating I feel are missing from my life and considering how I can fulfill my emotional needs for those particular kinds of relating.
For instance, currently I have a longing to have a connection where I can be both emotionally and sexually vulnerable. There are people in my life that I am emotionally vulnerable with, and people I am sexually vulnerable with (being vulnerable is a good thing, btw, perhaps a topic for another day!); but it is harder to find somebody who can offer me both of these things, on an ongoing basis anyways. (Life is complicated! Getting two adults to sort their shit out so they can build something together is actually a pretty big ask.) While I want to have that kind of a connection with somebody, I don't need for them to be my 'partner'. And I certainly don't need for us to share our emotional/sexual vulnerabilities with each other exclusively! There is no reason for that connection to be the most important connection in my life; it is just one of many ways of connecting, and happens to be a connection I currently don't have but would like to have.
The thing is, life is fluid. Relationships shift and change, and the emphasis we place on any relationship does not stay constant for the duration of the relationship; especially in long term relationships! To illustrate, I have one close friendship that is over 20 years old. At times that friendship has been pretty central to my life, and at other times it has been peripheral. The content of our friendship has certainly changed as we've gone through life! We started out as quite different people, found ourselves leading parallel lives for awhile, and are now pretty much polar opposites of each other. This friendship has remained important to me, but of course its role in my life is different now. How we can offer each other support is different now. This friendship has less emphasis in my life, less energy put into it, right now. Because it's not what either of us needs right now. And that will change as it needs to.
I think that people get that about friendships, but act like it is somehow different when it is a romantic/sexual relationship. But why would it be? Emotions might be felt more intensely in a romantic/sexual relationship, but they are not somehow immune to the ebb and flow of life and individual needs. When two people decide to commit to each other in a romantic/sexual relationship, it is not as if they suddenly become one person; they are still two separate individuals with unique emotional needs and life circumstances. They are both on their own life journeys, even if they are each other's travel companions.
As I said at the start of this blog, I am not immune to the ideology of One True Love. I do not think that forming romantic/sexual partnerships is a bad thing, nor do I think that it is bad for that type of relationship to be of primary importance in a person's life. I think it is incredibly problematic to idealise that type of relationship though; to treat someone as if their life is incomplete for not having that type of relationship in it.
I don't know how I'll feel the next time I find myself falling in love. I think it will be different, because I am redefining what relationships mean for me and look like in my life. I have stopped looking for particular types of relationships. Instead, I like to meet new people and just see what develops with them. What sort of chemistry do we have? What can we share with one another? What journey will we go on together? I have found that this has made me open to a lot of different possibilities and has lead to some really beautiful experiences.
Along with forming relationships in new ways, I am also trying to engage with them differently when they end. I like to focus on what was good about the relationship. What pleasure did that person bring to my life? What joy? What did I learn from them? How did I grow? I am choosing to honour those memories, to think kindly of the relationships that are no longer in my life. To remember their beauty and to let them go, thanking them for what they gave to me for however long that lasted. I think we focus too much on the pain and the hurt when relationships end, and that's not helpful. I try to remember that all relationships are temporary, even if they last a really long time. Focusing on the good doesn't make the hurt go away, but it helps. Because any amount of beauty and joy that something brings to your life is a positive thing.
Monday, October 28, 2013
The Pleasure of Stillness
The past few months have been pretty chaotic for me. I have been busy with my thesis, busy with work, busy with travel, busy with boys, busy with housemates, busy with housework. Busy with so many things that I have not had time to be still.
But this weekend, almost unexpectedly, I've found myself with nothing pressing to do. And it was lovely! I feel like a human again. And I'm sure that Stressed Out Future Joni will greatly appreciate the freezer full of veggie lasagne she now has!
My thesis is about applying Foucault's theory of ethics of the self to a particular concept: young people's negotiation of their love/sex relationships within the context of 'new media environments'. The lines between my thesis and my personal life - to borrow from that terrible song - are blurred. But unlike that awful song, it's kind of a wonderful thing.
I'll spare you a detailed explanation of the theory (if you wanna know about it, you can read my bloody thesis! Or the 3 volumes of Foucault's The History of Sexuality). Basically, ethics of the self is about developing a particular relationship with yourself. It is about critically engaging with social norms that tell us how to be, and with knowledge that claims to speak the 'truth' about who we are. It is about reflecting on who you are and who you want to be and why. It is about learning to find the boundaries, the limits, of your 'self' and exploring those edges. It is about growing and changing and challenging. But most of all, it is about care. Care for yourself and care for others.
It's been a really beautiful experience for me, doing a PhD on reflexive engagement with the 'self'. Because a PhD is a horrible thing to do, so caring for yourself while doing it is really important! I have learnt so much about myself in this process, and have grown and changed, and am really happy with the person that I have become (though I am not actually happy with my life right now, but, that is a different story).
If you were to read volumes 2 and 3 of The History of Sexuality you would find a rather lengthy explanation of various practices that the ancient Greeks and Romans engaged in as part of their self-crafting. The point of describing these, for Foucault, isn't to give us a 'how to' list, but to show how an active, reflexive engagement with one's 'self' can transform a person into something new. What the actual practices are is of secondary importance; it is what these practices do - what they produce - that matters most.
Finding balance in my life is something that I think I've always struggled with. Doing a PhD has made that struggle a lot harder. There have been times when it has broken me. I have had to stop working on my thesis, in the past, because if I didn't I would lose what little semblance of mental health I still had. I still struggle with finding balance, but I am a lot more aware of what I need to do to care for myself now - to prevent the balance from tipping too far into a place that is dangerous for my well-being.
This has meant learning things about myself and respecting those things. And some of those things have been unexpected. For instance, I've found that while I was working on writing my thesis I required a lot of external stimulation. I needed to maintain an active social life to balance out the intense thinking work I was doing. But as soon as I finished writing my first draft, I didn't want to see anybody! I needed to recharge, and being an introvert, that meant being away from other people.
I have learnt that it is really hard for me to live with other people. I am both more productive and happier when I am living on my own. It's not possible for me to live on my own right now, but this has become a priority for me - to have my own place by the time I turn 32. I'm also happier when I have an animal companion, so, along with my own apartment I will be getting my own cat. Though I'll feel bad about leaving my current feline companion... who spends more time with me than her owner!
Those are big things though, and care of the self can be about really simple things. Like having a weekend to do nothing. Or wearing nail polish. Or alphabetising my DVDs. There are a lot of little things that I have learnt to do to care for myself; I am not going to list them all here. The point is to figure out what those things are for yourself. What makes you happy? What makes you feel better when you're down? The point is to do those things for yourself. Because they are necessary and important! Because what is the point of going through life without enjoyment of it?
But this weekend, almost unexpectedly, I've found myself with nothing pressing to do. And it was lovely! I feel like a human again. And I'm sure that Stressed Out Future Joni will greatly appreciate the freezer full of veggie lasagne she now has!
My thesis is about applying Foucault's theory of ethics of the self to a particular concept: young people's negotiation of their love/sex relationships within the context of 'new media environments'. The lines between my thesis and my personal life - to borrow from that terrible song - are blurred. But unlike that awful song, it's kind of a wonderful thing.
I'll spare you a detailed explanation of the theory (if you wanna know about it, you can read my bloody thesis! Or the 3 volumes of Foucault's The History of Sexuality). Basically, ethics of the self is about developing a particular relationship with yourself. It is about critically engaging with social norms that tell us how to be, and with knowledge that claims to speak the 'truth' about who we are. It is about reflecting on who you are and who you want to be and why. It is about learning to find the boundaries, the limits, of your 'self' and exploring those edges. It is about growing and changing and challenging. But most of all, it is about care. Care for yourself and care for others.
It's been a really beautiful experience for me, doing a PhD on reflexive engagement with the 'self'. Because a PhD is a horrible thing to do, so caring for yourself while doing it is really important! I have learnt so much about myself in this process, and have grown and changed, and am really happy with the person that I have become (though I am not actually happy with my life right now, but, that is a different story).
If you were to read volumes 2 and 3 of The History of Sexuality you would find a rather lengthy explanation of various practices that the ancient Greeks and Romans engaged in as part of their self-crafting. The point of describing these, for Foucault, isn't to give us a 'how to' list, but to show how an active, reflexive engagement with one's 'self' can transform a person into something new. What the actual practices are is of secondary importance; it is what these practices do - what they produce - that matters most.
Finding balance in my life is something that I think I've always struggled with. Doing a PhD has made that struggle a lot harder. There have been times when it has broken me. I have had to stop working on my thesis, in the past, because if I didn't I would lose what little semblance of mental health I still had. I still struggle with finding balance, but I am a lot more aware of what I need to do to care for myself now - to prevent the balance from tipping too far into a place that is dangerous for my well-being.
This has meant learning things about myself and respecting those things. And some of those things have been unexpected. For instance, I've found that while I was working on writing my thesis I required a lot of external stimulation. I needed to maintain an active social life to balance out the intense thinking work I was doing. But as soon as I finished writing my first draft, I didn't want to see anybody! I needed to recharge, and being an introvert, that meant being away from other people.
I have learnt that it is really hard for me to live with other people. I am both more productive and happier when I am living on my own. It's not possible for me to live on my own right now, but this has become a priority for me - to have my own place by the time I turn 32. I'm also happier when I have an animal companion, so, along with my own apartment I will be getting my own cat. Though I'll feel bad about leaving my current feline companion... who spends more time with me than her owner!
Those are big things though, and care of the self can be about really simple things. Like having a weekend to do nothing. Or wearing nail polish. Or alphabetising my DVDs. There are a lot of little things that I have learnt to do to care for myself; I am not going to list them all here. The point is to figure out what those things are for yourself. What makes you happy? What makes you feel better when you're down? The point is to do those things for yourself. Because they are necessary and important! Because what is the point of going through life without enjoyment of it?
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
The Q in Alphabet Soup
Apparently yesterday (or today, depending on your time zone) was International Bisexuality Visibility Day. Personally, I'm not a fan of the term 'bisexual' and I cringe every time it's applied to me. It feels dated and incredibly limiting; 'bi' implies a duality and when it comes to gender and sexuality, there are a helluva lot more than two options! Also, I feel like it's an identity that has been co-opted by this fantasy whereby bisexual ladies (and their nubile friends) are seen as eagerly available to fulfill all your sexual desires.
I don't say this to be dissing on any bisexuals. If that's how you prefer to identify, that's up to you. I'd be interested in having a conversation about why bi, though, given that 'queer' and 'pansexual' are also well established options (though I have an uneasy relationship with pansexual too because I feel like it presents all sexual desire as being on an even field and is therefore quite reductionary of sexual desire).
I identify as queer. Queer is something of a catch-all phrase, though not in the way it is often used! While you can say that a lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, etc identity is a 'queer' identity, each of these categories are identity categories onto themselves - and contain their own plethora of subcultures and ways of being which may or may not be 'queer'. What I'm trying to say is, these categories are overlapping, yes, but distinct. A lesbian is not necessarily queer. And yes, my eye does start to twitch every time I hear someone using the term queer interchangeably with other identity categories in the rainbow flavoured alphabet soup.
The reason that queer is a catch-all phrase, and why I identify with it so strongly, is because it is about a lot more than who you fuck. Sure, that's a part of it, but you can be staunchly heterosexual and still be queer. Queer is about critically engaging with the politics of gender, sexuality, and relationships. For a start. I'd say it's also about engaging with the politics of class and race, but as a middle class white woman whose academic focus has tended to be on other middle class white people, I'm going to leave that discussion for people who actually know what they're talking about. (Sometimes I feel like it's narcissistic to be so focused on deconstructing myself. But, firstly, it's my blog and I'll do what I want with it! And secondly, the only thing I can really claim to be an expert on is myself.)
So, to clarify, I feel that it is incorrect to identify as 'queer' on the sole basis of having sex with someone of the same gender as yourself. Being queer is about challenging 'normativity'. You know, that thing where women and men are supposed to like each other and get married (to each other) and be monogamous and have babies. And that thing where boys and girls look and act in certain ways, and those ways are different from one another. Or, you know, the idea that certain ways of doing or learning or creating are more valid or productive or useful than others.
The reason all this is on my mind as of late is because my life underwent a pretty big change a couple months ago, and it's taken me down a rather unexpected path. My girlfriend and I broke up, and I decided to start seeing men. It's...complicated and I don't fully understand how I went from being adamantly disinterested in men and happily committed to a beautiful woman to falling out of love with said woman and becoming happily uncommitted to some wonderful men. But it happened fast. Or, it didn't. At any rate, the turn around from being devastated about the breakup to being really fucking happy with my life happened incredibly fast.
Have I magically turned straight? No, definitely not. Am I still into women? Yes...no...I don't know. After a 7 year hiatus from men it's just feeling really nice to be in the company of men. This whole thing has left me with more questions than answers, but, for the most part I feel like the answers to the questions I've got are pretty much irrelevant. As long as the answer to the question "Am I happy?" is "Yes." Which it is.
Which is funny, because, for a long time I felt like I couldn't be happy with men. Because 7+ years ago I was really, very unhappy being with men. But... a lot has changed. What I realise now is that it wasn't men, as such, that I was unhappy with, but heteronormativity. The expectation that I would conform to particular ways of being gendered, sexual, and in a relationship did not sit easy for me. Especially in Calgary, which, in case you didn't know, is a very conservative place! Nonconformity isn't exactly encouraged in Calgary.
But, I've spent the better part of past decade gradually developing my queerness and now feel quite comfortable to be myself - in all my normative and non-normative glory - across all my relationships; be they with friends, family, colleagues, lovers, strangers, housemates, or service providers. My relationships with men now are quite different from before. For starters, they occur on my terms or they don't occur at all. I feel quite free, actually. Even more so than when I was just dating women. Because now, other person(s) consenting, I can have whatever kind of relationship I want with whomever I want. My reflections on queering relationships and the problem with monogamy are probably best left for another day though!
I will just say this: I really am happily uncommitted. And I really do feel free. I'm very nearly finished my PhD, and I have absolutely no idea what kind of a journey that's going to take me on. It was wonderful to have a partner for a good chunk of this last push to finish my thesis; I will forever be thankful to my ex for the support she gave me in what was a very difficult and trying period of my life. A lot of the happiness I feel now I owe to her - both for being with me and for breaking up with me. I want to be focused on myself now. I want to be able to pursue whatever interesting opportunities come my way in this next phase of my (professional) life, without having to negotiate that with another person. And I'm very thankful that I get to do that.
I don't say this to be dissing on any bisexuals. If that's how you prefer to identify, that's up to you. I'd be interested in having a conversation about why bi, though, given that 'queer' and 'pansexual' are also well established options (though I have an uneasy relationship with pansexual too because I feel like it presents all sexual desire as being on an even field and is therefore quite reductionary of sexual desire).
I identify as queer. Queer is something of a catch-all phrase, though not in the way it is often used! While you can say that a lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, etc identity is a 'queer' identity, each of these categories are identity categories onto themselves - and contain their own plethora of subcultures and ways of being which may or may not be 'queer'. What I'm trying to say is, these categories are overlapping, yes, but distinct. A lesbian is not necessarily queer. And yes, my eye does start to twitch every time I hear someone using the term queer interchangeably with other identity categories in the rainbow flavoured alphabet soup.
The reason that queer is a catch-all phrase, and why I identify with it so strongly, is because it is about a lot more than who you fuck. Sure, that's a part of it, but you can be staunchly heterosexual and still be queer. Queer is about critically engaging with the politics of gender, sexuality, and relationships. For a start. I'd say it's also about engaging with the politics of class and race, but as a middle class white woman whose academic focus has tended to be on other middle class white people, I'm going to leave that discussion for people who actually know what they're talking about. (Sometimes I feel like it's narcissistic to be so focused on deconstructing myself. But, firstly, it's my blog and I'll do what I want with it! And secondly, the only thing I can really claim to be an expert on is myself.)
So, to clarify, I feel that it is incorrect to identify as 'queer' on the sole basis of having sex with someone of the same gender as yourself. Being queer is about challenging 'normativity'. You know, that thing where women and men are supposed to like each other and get married (to each other) and be monogamous and have babies. And that thing where boys and girls look and act in certain ways, and those ways are different from one another. Or, you know, the idea that certain ways of doing or learning or creating are more valid or productive or useful than others.
The reason all this is on my mind as of late is because my life underwent a pretty big change a couple months ago, and it's taken me down a rather unexpected path. My girlfriend and I broke up, and I decided to start seeing men. It's...complicated and I don't fully understand how I went from being adamantly disinterested in men and happily committed to a beautiful woman to falling out of love with said woman and becoming happily uncommitted to some wonderful men. But it happened fast. Or, it didn't. At any rate, the turn around from being devastated about the breakup to being really fucking happy with my life happened incredibly fast.
Have I magically turned straight? No, definitely not. Am I still into women? Yes...no...I don't know. After a 7 year hiatus from men it's just feeling really nice to be in the company of men. This whole thing has left me with more questions than answers, but, for the most part I feel like the answers to the questions I've got are pretty much irrelevant. As long as the answer to the question "Am I happy?" is "Yes." Which it is.
Which is funny, because, for a long time I felt like I couldn't be happy with men. Because 7+ years ago I was really, very unhappy being with men. But... a lot has changed. What I realise now is that it wasn't men, as such, that I was unhappy with, but heteronormativity. The expectation that I would conform to particular ways of being gendered, sexual, and in a relationship did not sit easy for me. Especially in Calgary, which, in case you didn't know, is a very conservative place! Nonconformity isn't exactly encouraged in Calgary.
But, I've spent the better part of past decade gradually developing my queerness and now feel quite comfortable to be myself - in all my normative and non-normative glory - across all my relationships; be they with friends, family, colleagues, lovers, strangers, housemates, or service providers. My relationships with men now are quite different from before. For starters, they occur on my terms or they don't occur at all. I feel quite free, actually. Even more so than when I was just dating women. Because now, other person(s) consenting, I can have whatever kind of relationship I want with whomever I want. My reflections on queering relationships and the problem with monogamy are probably best left for another day though!
I will just say this: I really am happily uncommitted. And I really do feel free. I'm very nearly finished my PhD, and I have absolutely no idea what kind of a journey that's going to take me on. It was wonderful to have a partner for a good chunk of this last push to finish my thesis; I will forever be thankful to my ex for the support she gave me in what was a very difficult and trying period of my life. A lot of the happiness I feel now I owe to her - both for being with me and for breaking up with me. I want to be focused on myself now. I want to be able to pursue whatever interesting opportunities come my way in this next phase of my (professional) life, without having to negotiate that with another person. And I'm very thankful that I get to do that.
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Life After Thesis
For the past 5 years I've been working on my PhD, which culminates in the writing of an 80,000-100,000 word thesis. A couple of weeks ago I finished writing my thesis. It weighs in (with references and appendices) at just under 92,000 words.
Now, my PhD is by no means complete! The thesis is written, but now my supervisors are reading it and they will give me feedback on what I need to do to improve it. Then I'll do that, send it off to an editor to deal with all the finicky stuff, and submit. Then it gets sent to my examiners who read it and make their comments/suggestions and decide if it passes with major, minor, or no revisions (technically they can say it doesn't pass, but that almost never happens). THEN I have to respond to the comments the examiners make, and once that is satisfactorily completed, I can submit my hard bound thesis to the university and apply to graduate. And then, when I walk across the stage in my funny hat and get my physical degree, you'll all have to call me Dr Joni FOREVER!!! MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
As many of you are aware, the writing of said thesis has left me a tad ... preoccupied. (Other acceptable descriptions include: single-minded, self-centred, miserable, unpleasant company, nonsensical, or bat shit crazy.) It's consumed a lot of my energy, especially in the final pushes to finish it. I haven't had a lot of mental energy to expend upon other things, but, like the Joni Mitchell song says, "you don't know what you've got til it's gone." I thought I was leading a pretty balanced life, until I finished writing my thesis! Suddenly, I had all sorts of anxious mental energy and no outlet to pour it into. I was looking around at my life wildly going "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!?!?!?"
Fortunately for me, in a moment of desperation when I thought my thesis would never end I'd booked myself a week long holiday to Sydney. I turned a corner with the writing process a couple days after booking my flights, and having that upcoming holiday spurred me on to get everything finished so I wouldn't have to have the thesisbeast hanging over my head while I was away. The other benefit of this was, after handing off my thesis I had nothing to do but be anxious about everything. So getting out of town for awhile was a good move. If I'd been in Melbourne I probably would have spiraled into a bad state of mental health. Instead, having nothing in particular to do in a city where I wouldn't have anything in particular to do anyways was a great distraction from the newly formed void in my life. I had quite a lovely time roaming the streets of Sydney, sipping their (inferior) coffee in their very cute cafes, reading books about futuristic dystopias (by far my favourite genre).
When I got back to Melbourne though, I had to face the fact that I didn't have much of anything to do with myself. I mean, I have things. I'm about to start a new job, I've got friends to catch up with, I've got my girlfriend, there's revision work I can do on my thesis, as well as writing articles for publication. But I could also just sit in a corner and stare at a wall and drool all over myself. The pressure to produce something is gone.
Another smart move: I made an appointment to see a counsellor once I got back from Sydney. She said a couple of things that really resonated with me: 1) After working so hard for so long on a single project, letting it go is hard to do and involves some grieving. 2) The thesis becomes such a priority that everything else just gets pushed aside. Now that I'm not working on it, all those things I've pushed aside are popping back up and demanding my attention. And they are not necessarily things I want to give attention to!
I've got some issues to work through, and I've got the support to do that. I find that having my experiences validated actually goes a long way towards relieving my anxiety, so I'm feeling much better than I was about a week ago!
It hasn't been all bad, the stuff that's popped up and demanded my attention. In fact, a lot of it has been exciting and fun! For starters, I thought I was making a lot of time for my relationship with Foxy, but now there's just a whole different quality to that time. And that's been amazing! I'm really pumped to be able to catch up with all my friends again, I've just been hesitating because I'm also aware that I still don't actually have any money. Fortunately, this is now a temporary problem.
One of the things I'm really excited about is that I've actually started to pay attention to my physical body again. I've acquired more than a few PhD injuries over the past few years and now I am starting on the path to recovery. I've got a new program at the gym to help my injuries recover, Brunswick Baths has FINALLY reopened their indoor pool (which is good enough, since I've got a shoulder injury that makes swimming in a 50m pool difficult), I'm doing Pilates, Hubby is going to set me up with a personalised yoga program (since a wrist injury has written me off from my former yoga classes), and tomorrow I'm getting a remedial massage to sort out the rather intense muscle cramping in my legs.
I've started making food for myself again too. Food that involves more than carbs, sugar, and cheese. Food that is actually kinda delicious. I'm remembering flavours and creativity, and that cooking can be enjoyable.
I've also started to consider aesthetics again. Towards the end of the writing process, I rarely looked at myself in the mirror, or brushed my hair, or put much consideration into what my outfit as a whole looked like (all that mattered was if it felt comfortable to sit at a computer for 12 hours in). I'm remembering makeup and starting to wear it again. I've come to really like the way I look without makeup, but I stopped wearing it because it was just a hassle to not be able to rub my computer-bleary eyes, and because I only ever saw the same 10 people anyways and they didn't care. I've started to take pride in my appearance again and the difference is noticeable! I've made friends with nail polish as a fashion accessory, instead of just as a nail-biting deterrent.
Now that the thesis is not front and centre in my life, I'm starting to focus on myself again, or still, but in a different way! In a way that encompasses others. My life is about to begin a new era, so as I make the transition from 'PhD Candidate' to 'PhD', I am using this time to get back in touch with myself and the things that make me happy. Instead of spinning my wheels and worrying about what will be around the next bend, I am preparing myself to be the best version of myself so that I can meet whatever new found challenges await me head on. And look good doing it!
Now, my PhD is by no means complete! The thesis is written, but now my supervisors are reading it and they will give me feedback on what I need to do to improve it. Then I'll do that, send it off to an editor to deal with all the finicky stuff, and submit. Then it gets sent to my examiners who read it and make their comments/suggestions and decide if it passes with major, minor, or no revisions (technically they can say it doesn't pass, but that almost never happens). THEN I have to respond to the comments the examiners make, and once that is satisfactorily completed, I can submit my hard bound thesis to the university and apply to graduate. And then, when I walk across the stage in my funny hat and get my physical degree, you'll all have to call me Dr Joni FOREVER!!! MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
As many of you are aware, the writing of said thesis has left me a tad ... preoccupied. (Other acceptable descriptions include: single-minded, self-centred, miserable, unpleasant company, nonsensical, or bat shit crazy.) It's consumed a lot of my energy, especially in the final pushes to finish it. I haven't had a lot of mental energy to expend upon other things, but, like the Joni Mitchell song says, "you don't know what you've got til it's gone." I thought I was leading a pretty balanced life, until I finished writing my thesis! Suddenly, I had all sorts of anxious mental energy and no outlet to pour it into. I was looking around at my life wildly going "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!?!?!?"
Fortunately for me, in a moment of desperation when I thought my thesis would never end I'd booked myself a week long holiday to Sydney. I turned a corner with the writing process a couple days after booking my flights, and having that upcoming holiday spurred me on to get everything finished so I wouldn't have to have the thesisbeast hanging over my head while I was away. The other benefit of this was, after handing off my thesis I had nothing to do but be anxious about everything. So getting out of town for awhile was a good move. If I'd been in Melbourne I probably would have spiraled into a bad state of mental health. Instead, having nothing in particular to do in a city where I wouldn't have anything in particular to do anyways was a great distraction from the newly formed void in my life. I had quite a lovely time roaming the streets of Sydney, sipping their (inferior) coffee in their very cute cafes, reading books about futuristic dystopias (by far my favourite genre).
When I got back to Melbourne though, I had to face the fact that I didn't have much of anything to do with myself. I mean, I have things. I'm about to start a new job, I've got friends to catch up with, I've got my girlfriend, there's revision work I can do on my thesis, as well as writing articles for publication. But I could also just sit in a corner and stare at a wall and drool all over myself. The pressure to produce something is gone.
Another smart move: I made an appointment to see a counsellor once I got back from Sydney. She said a couple of things that really resonated with me: 1) After working so hard for so long on a single project, letting it go is hard to do and involves some grieving. 2) The thesis becomes such a priority that everything else just gets pushed aside. Now that I'm not working on it, all those things I've pushed aside are popping back up and demanding my attention. And they are not necessarily things I want to give attention to!
I've got some issues to work through, and I've got the support to do that. I find that having my experiences validated actually goes a long way towards relieving my anxiety, so I'm feeling much better than I was about a week ago!
It hasn't been all bad, the stuff that's popped up and demanded my attention. In fact, a lot of it has been exciting and fun! For starters, I thought I was making a lot of time for my relationship with Foxy, but now there's just a whole different quality to that time. And that's been amazing! I'm really pumped to be able to catch up with all my friends again, I've just been hesitating because I'm also aware that I still don't actually have any money. Fortunately, this is now a temporary problem.
One of the things I'm really excited about is that I've actually started to pay attention to my physical body again. I've acquired more than a few PhD injuries over the past few years and now I am starting on the path to recovery. I've got a new program at the gym to help my injuries recover, Brunswick Baths has FINALLY reopened their indoor pool (which is good enough, since I've got a shoulder injury that makes swimming in a 50m pool difficult), I'm doing Pilates, Hubby is going to set me up with a personalised yoga program (since a wrist injury has written me off from my former yoga classes), and tomorrow I'm getting a remedial massage to sort out the rather intense muscle cramping in my legs.
I've started making food for myself again too. Food that involves more than carbs, sugar, and cheese. Food that is actually kinda delicious. I'm remembering flavours and creativity, and that cooking can be enjoyable.
I've also started to consider aesthetics again. Towards the end of the writing process, I rarely looked at myself in the mirror, or brushed my hair, or put much consideration into what my outfit as a whole looked like (all that mattered was if it felt comfortable to sit at a computer for 12 hours in). I'm remembering makeup and starting to wear it again. I've come to really like the way I look without makeup, but I stopped wearing it because it was just a hassle to not be able to rub my computer-bleary eyes, and because I only ever saw the same 10 people anyways and they didn't care. I've started to take pride in my appearance again and the difference is noticeable! I've made friends with nail polish as a fashion accessory, instead of just as a nail-biting deterrent.
Now that the thesis is not front and centre in my life, I'm starting to focus on myself again, or still, but in a different way! In a way that encompasses others. My life is about to begin a new era, so as I make the transition from 'PhD Candidate' to 'PhD', I am using this time to get back in touch with myself and the things that make me happy. Instead of spinning my wheels and worrying about what will be around the next bend, I am preparing myself to be the best version of myself so that I can meet whatever new found challenges await me head on. And look good doing it!
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