phd ready

When I was filling out my PhD applications in July of 2020, I wrote one sentence that made me step away from my laptop by the sheer truth of it.

“I am the most capable of doing a PhD at this point in my life than ever before”.

One of the most helpful therapy sessions I’ve ever had was when my therapist encouraged me to pay attention to the feelings right before I get “distracted” or switch activities abruptly or go on a scrolling binge (what was what happening in my body the moment directly before.. anxious, frustrated, disappointed, sad). I shut the lid of my laptop right after that sentence because of the weight of it.

The amount of self trust I had built up to be able to rely on myself to genuinely take care of myself became so apparent to me during lockdowns. Not just the surface level things, the band-aid things. But the journaling my real thoughts, saying my feelings out loud, upholding my boundaries, respecting my emotional capacity, following through on promises to myself. There are times when immense waves of grief come up when I consider how long it’s taken for that trust in myself to be built.

But when I wrote that sentence, it was immense awe and pride that needed space. And this weekend, coming out of the depths of lack of motivation and haze and winter hibernation, I realized how much I really live into that sentence, even if it still occasionally takes time to show up for myself.

After a couple now weeks of running up my screen time on weekends and having unkind self talk about it, I spent hours pickling this weekend. New pickle (gherkin) recipes, pickled onions, pickled garlic. I spent hours in my kitchen. I made peach jam and bought fresh sourdough and focaccia for this week’s meals. I baked cookies and drank a bottle of wine and danced and arranged fresh flowers for my desk.

This is how I know, halfway through my PhD, that I was right to write that sentence. It’s not just sticking to not working on PhD things on weekends, but also doing what replenishes me. Honoring what starts as a small inkling of what I need, and welcoming that knowledge.

It’s not always the big convos or emotional outpours, sometimes it’s just a new pickle recipe.