Almost

I just finished my revised/final draft of the Introduction for my dissertation.

There's a glimmer of light....

I suppose it goes without saying that I can't wait to be done. I also can't wait to have my social life back. David has kept me slightly sane during the week, but that's only because he was in the class I was TAing. We went out on Monday night and drank and talked about everything under the sun at the Sire until 1:30 a.m., and I realized it was the first time I'd been out in a while. My weekends go to Kyle, and gleefully so, but we are usually so tired from our respective weeks that we stay in and have us/down time. It's great, but it will also be great to get our relationship out on social grounds. I also can't wait to run again. Again, I'm so tired and strapped for time that the thought of walking, let alone running, is NOT appealing!

What has been great, though, is that for the first time I really, really get my dissertation project. It's the oddest thing to meld 7 years of research into 27 pages, but it is also amazing to realize how much work you've done in that time--it's not all lost and this is a great feeling. There's a trajectory that you just can't see until you are forced to sit down and look back at all your notes, readings, exams, etc.

What also amazes me is that I met Kyle in the thick of all this. It just seems so ironic that we have relatively effortlessly sailed through our busiest and most stressful academic experiences (my friend Pat told me today that the dissertation is the most hellish thing I will ever encounter, and I believe her!!). I think it speaks volumes of how well we work together. This gives me faith that we can sail through just about anything because we offer each other the kind of support we both need: there's no crutching, just a quiet and mutual encouragement and respect. It's sort of like learning to drive a manual transmission on an '81 Volvo: it's has the stiffest clutch you'll ever encounter, so if you can learn to drive stick on it, you can drive just about anything.