It's been something that I haven't quite been able to wrap my head around until recently. Very recently. I read somewhere, and I honestly don't remember where, a quote: Procrastination isn't the inability to start, it's the fear of finishing.
In some ways I think the quote is a bit cliche and probably not all that true but for me, now, it speaks loudest. I've thought about what it means for me to complete my thesis, to complete all the coursework needed to complete requirements for my degree. What it means is that I'll no longer be a student and being a student has defined me for the past four years. When I started college all those years ago, just after high school, like everyone else, I didn't feel like a student. I didn't want to be there; I wanted to party all night, sleep all day and hang out with my friends. School took a back seat until it finally just got put in the trunk. When I exhausted myself with all the late nights and lack of money, I decided it was time to get a job and I worked for seven years before I felt the itch to go back to school and finish my first degree. Part of that itch was thanks to my best friend, part of it was thanks to my then, boyfriend and part of it was my desire to do something else with my life and my belief that school would take me where I wanted to go. Strangely enough, that thought was something I believed I had grown out of seven years earlier and strangely enough that thought it is exactly what fuels my participants too, but if you want to know about that, you'll have to read my thesis - when it's finally written.
When I returned to school as a full time student in 2007 I felt different. I felt like a student, I felt like I understood what it meant to be in college, what was expected of me from professors, courses, classmates, and the institution. I was thrilled every time I made the Dean's List, which was every semester upon my return. That matters because in my final semester all those years earlier, I stopped attending class but never withdrew and consequently failed all five of my classes, leaving me with a GPA under 2.0. Most of you probably don't know that about me and if you know how I am as a student now, probably don't believe it to be true. Even more astonishing was my ability to still graduate Cum Laude - because I felt like I found my place again. After graduation I rolled directly into a graduate program at a new university in a new city, where I knew no one.
Being here alone forced me to focus on school even more than I already would have because I had no outlet for socializing. I had no friends or family to distract me, my then boyfriend was deployed, all I could do was work and be a student. My job was (still is, until August) as a graduate research assistant so it kept me linked with all things academe and it added fuel to the already raging fire that I have in my belly for a place in the system. I finally loved something. I loved being a student, I loved attending and presenting at conferences, I loved doing research and reading and writing and discussing. I loved the world that existed inside my computer and inside the walls of my university; and it started in 2007. It was no longer a lofty dream or distant goal to picture myself inside that world forever but as the days become shorter and as I get closer to matriculating, the more distant it all feels. Again.
Perhaps my lack of motivation isn't a lack of motivation at all but instead an unwillingness to complete my final task because that would mean that my life inside the walls of the university has come to an end. I should be excited. Instead, I think I'm depressed. I don't know what comes next and fear of that unknown makes me nervous to leave the only world I HAVE known for the past four years. I'm not rolling into another program right away; I'm not chasing a PhD when my thesis is over. I'm done when my thesis is done and that is a lonely feeling, like I'm lost in the woods and forgot my compass at home.
Deep down I know that things will turn out for the best, they always do, I always land on my feet and find greater opportunities. But this 'unknown', while exciting, is also terrifying. Do I think I'm the only person to ever experience this while in grad school? No, not at all. Does that make it easier to get through the days and nights? No, not at all. I don't cry often but lately I've made up for months of arid tear ducts, flooding my eyes and emotions, struggling to get through the woods and start on the path to the next big thing...
Until Next Time,
Courtney Chivon
