I have often witnessed the linkage of the metaphor of a baby to the thesis writing process. It’s your baby, you nurture it and love it and want it out of your life at emotional times and then you have to let it go and send it out into the world (or into your adviser’s hands). The baby metaphor is apt for so many reasons. I have never been so ready to wipe up metaphorical baby vomit (linked I guess to damage control like restructuring a chapter or something) or so willing to stay up all night tending to the baby (like typing until 4 am, crawling into bed exhausted and beginning all over again at 7 am). I have never been so in love with a project and so absolutely afraid of it simultaneously. I’m afraid I’m going to break it, ruin it, drop it on its head or forget to feed it or something. A baby!? I’m not responsible enough for that! What if I can’t be a good mother? What if I can’t nurture it and then it will grow up not making sense? What if my research is misdirected or I’ve chosen a topic that’s been addressed millions of times before? What if it’s a bad egg?
I have mommy nightmares, stress dreams which wake me up and cause me to sit bolt upright, too anxious to sleep in. It’s time to go check on the baby. In my other classes everything relates to my baby, everything is about dualisms and sameness and difference and transcendence, I can’t escape it. And I write and write and write and write. I neglect my friends, my hygiene, my life, and I’ve never been so glad to give everything up in my life to devote myself to one single cause. I’m a mommy martyr for a cause and I’m on fire.
And suddenly…
I’m finished. And I maybe cry a little bit (at least get choked up reading the conclusion) and I realize it’s time to let it go. So I do a final check and I dress it up all fancy (black binding from book store) and I go leave it in my adviser’s door. And I do the whole “I’m SO glad that it’s done!” act but then I return to my apartment and…
I don’t know what to do. I said I would give myself a break from other classwork for a short time to celebrate so I can’t do that. I don’t really want to watch a movie, everyone else is working as I finished a week early and I don’t want to do anything else. Frankly, I feel empty, like something is missing. It’s the post thesis depression. Tom Cruise can’t comment on this one (he decried Brooke Shields use of anti-depressants to deal with her postpartum depression) because I was really feeling it. I went to bed unsatisfied. And guess what? I had thesis nightmares. Yes, nightmares about thesis still. I dreamt that the margins of the paper weren’t right, that headings were messed up. I had anxiety dreams! And I woke up at 7am. I was afraid I was permanently scarred and that I’d never get better again.
But as some person once said “time heals all wounds.” The next night I slept a bit better. That weekend I actually slept in until 12:45. Now that’s unheard of for me. Everyone was surprised. “Did you JUST wake up?” my roommates asked in disbelief. Oh I did just wake up. And I’ve been sleeping in ever since.
So, the baby is an apt metaphor to apply to the thesis writing process. Though in life one is not required to have a baby like one is required to write a thesis at Bates (though it may feel that way sometimes ladies), thesis is something you birth and it’s incredibly painful, one of your greatest loves and one of the most anxiety producing/keep-you-up-at-night things you will ever encounter. And it is so totally worth every minute because now it’s all grown up (I have a bound thesis). Something to show for all my hard work. And that’s exciting and inspiring. And though you feel lost for a while after the process is finished, it lasts a hot minute and then you’re like me, ready for short term.
Shhhh,
Steph
