i'm trying to reconcile "failed PhD" into my identity, but what's hardest at the moment is the daily feeling of aimlessness. my days suddenly feel pointless. i'm no longer sure what i'm working towards.
meanwhile, i've started a new sweater with some lovely vegetable-dyed Araucania Nature Wool. knitting around and around--knit stitch after knit stitch--in a soft wool is comforting right now, like a good yoga pose one can sink into: my brow softens, my lips soften, the knot in my stomach softens, my heart softens. this sweater (already dubbed eponymous) will be a cardigan, so i'm heading towards my very first steek.
i try to bring home something new from the farmer's market every week. a few weeks ago, it was the beautiful creatures below. romanescos. the little one is about the size of a navel orange, the large one a grapefruit. a little googling revealed them beloved by mathematicians for their fractal and fibonacci qualities. surreal and tasty.
I'm sorry about your problems with your Ph.d, I can only imagine how mentally zoned you must be after all that work--discombobulated seems like an excellent word. I hope you find the time and peace to reconcile all the emotions.
ReplyDeleteahh, academia is so over-rated! they don't deserve you, so phooey to them.
ReplyDeletestill, it's hard, i'm sure - major shifts in who you thought you were are always tough. you know, after college i went through some pretty aimless days, trying to figure out who i was now that i wasn't "student andrea" and one book that really helped me was grace llewelyn's teenage liberation handbook. she writes about the unschooling movement, like homeschool but cooler.
anyway,the one part that really struck me was that she said she went through a kind of adult unschooling thing herself (sorry, can't think of a better word than "thing"!) and that at first, she didn't know what to do with her time - just watched tv and cooked a lot, read magazines, whatever. later, she saw that that time was important - a time to just decompress so that she could later be able to really asses where she was and what she wanted.
so. give yourself time! let yourself wallow, in the best sense of the word. this world just moves too fast as it is. all this is a big shift for you and it's impossible to think you can adjust to it quickly after so many years.
hm. bossy me speaking up over the internets, sorry. ;)
lovely knitting, meow girl ~ and yum, pretty fruit.
It's been almost a week since your post, I hope you don't feel as discombobulated. I can't think of any wise to say that won't sound trite to you, so just feel better soon. Knit a little. Chocolate is nice, too!
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