The first two weeks...

I have spent the last two weeks trying to force myself to be still. The result: I ended up crying myself to sleep several nights and deciding I need to start working on a Master of Public Administration this summer. I’m already in a PhD program. I’m married, I have a daughter, I am president of the graduate student organization on campus, I am converting to Judaism (which is no little task, let me assure you), I am on several university committees, teach and develop classes, I volunteer with the juvenile courts and in my daughter’s classroom twice a week. Oh, and I have an autoimmune disease that is making me bleed internally which makes me anemic which makes me tired. Don’t I already have enough to do/handle?! The answer: YES. But by forcing myself to be still I was left with the overwhelming sense that I am not going anywhere in life and that I needed to do more. This led me to wonder where any of us are going. The same place in the end I guess. It’s not like I don’t know that none of this really matters in the end. Does it matter how many degrees you had or how much knowledge you amassed when you’re dead? Not really. I think all that matters is that while you were here you did the best you could not to hurt anyone.

So why am I driven to constantly work more? I think the answer lies in the crying. Besides just letting myself cry for a while each night I made myself analyze why I was crying. I was crying because I feel like such a failure in life and I feel like I don’t deserve to be alive. I don’t know why I feel this way. I have a wonderful life with a man I love and a daughter I adore. I love teaching. I can’t say I love graduate school or my dissertation work but I do love microbiology in general. I am happy and extraordinarily grateful for every single day of my life. I thank G-d every day for everything I have been given and would never ask for a single moment back in my life. But I cry at night unless I exhaust myself so much during the day I don’t have time to think before I fall asleep.

I think this experiment is going well…if nothing else at least I have some more questions to work with…and another degree to plan… :)