Today is one of those rare January mornings where the sky is cloudless and the sun is pouring into my window, and I’m using the rare winter boost of serotonin to clean out my graduate school email inbox. After receiving my third reminder email from IT that I need to clear my stored files out of the cloud before they get deleted, I decide now is as good a time as any to wipe the slate clean, set up email forwarding, and download my files.
Of course, just like how when you were a kid and you’d find old notes and stuffed animals and CDs every time you cleaned your room, and you’d get distracted looking at stuff until two hours later when your mom would yell, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING UP THERE”—deep cleaning my electronic “room” always leads me down rabbit holes of old Word documents, old emails, old calendar events I’d forgotten about, and suddenly I’m knee-deep in a tide pool of nostalgia.
I started grad school in 2017. Half a decade ago. I was 23, about to get married, and living alone in my very first apartment. In 2017, everyone thought #MeToo might mean real cultural accountability for sexual predators for the first time (ha). Everyone was still making Trump “covfefe” jokes, the most retweeted tweet of all time was about a man trying to get Wendy’s chicken nuggets, and the final season of Game of Thrones aired that summer (which I did not watch). The COVID-era nihilism we’ve all developed was just a seedling during the first year of the Trump presidency.
I was so excited and overwhelmed at the prospect of grad school, and also completely alone in a strange new place, a midwesterner in a southern state where I knew 3 people (none of them within a 2 hour drive). In some ways, the PhD was only a backdrop to my life. I learned how to build community in a place where I knew no one; I learned how to set boundaries and stand up for myself as an adult; I learned how to manage my own burnout and grief; I learned how to leave a church; I learned how to find a rhythm and shape to married life with a partner I love and respect. I learned (and am learning) how to be a parent, and I learned how to write a dissertation.
In the last five years, I have known vulnerability in a way that I had never experienced before. The number of times I cried in public hit record highs. I went to group therapy. I learned how to admit my need for care and help. I learned how to let someone I trust hold me while I cry. I knew how to handle conflict, but this time I learned how to let other people I trust handle conflict for me. I learned when to walk away.
I also formed relationships during those years that will be a part of the rest of my life. The number of times I did karaoke in unlikely places hit record highs. One summer involved partying at our apartment complex swimming pool with my best friend almost every night. I learned how to have fun for the first time in my life. I laughed so hard I cried at least once a week. I made TikToks in my office. I started three newsletters and a podcast. I learned what loyalty and devotion in friendship really looks like. A few friendships ended during these years, and a few friends became like family.
I’ve always been bad at endings, even when the ending is good, even when the ending needs to happen. I am chronically sentimental about endings. Do I want to stay in grad school? Of course not, and I’m thrilled that I finished the PhD and it’s over. Do I miss watching my friend Tim try to jump onto an inflatable pool unicorn and instead landing on his face? Of course I do.
Do I wish I could go back to 2017, before I knew the difference between epidemic and pandemic, when we thought Trump was the scariest thing that could happen to us? Sometimes, yeah. But most days I choose to believe that I haven’t yet met all the people I’m going to love in this world. And even when I was in a strange place where I knew no one, I built a life of love and connection and community that is worth missing, and if I’ve done it once then I can do it again. Change is tough, but the good news is that I’M tough, and I can keep adapting and evolving.
When I was 23, I used to daydream about what my life in 2022 would be like—who I would be once I finished the PhD. I wish I could go back and tell her, I am the fruit of the seeds you planted.
“I am the fruit of the seeds you have planted.” Brilliant. Framing that and putting it above my desk. <3