Gloom & Doom

I'm fond of storms and clouds. I don't have to squint in the bright sunshine and the world feels sleepy and comforting to me. On an overcast day here, I'm quite content. I took a quick walk with the dog, dodging light sprinkles. Then I weeded around my lilac - after frosting over, it looks to be recovering beautifully in the southern heat and humidity that has descended on my neighborhood. I've done some light cleaning and a bit of work. My headache is, for the moment, gone and I feel rested and relaxed.

I realize that I have painted a less than comforting picture of academia recently. This bothers me on some level since I think people should have hope and remain optimistic about their chances for a brilliant and fulfilling career in research. Several times since starting this blog, I've felt like it's "Minor Revisions - The Place You Go to Get Bummed Out. Welcome!"

When I was in college, Mom sent a cookie bouquet for my birthday. She picked each cookie individually, and there one decorated as a birthday cake, another was a dog, there was a beaker for science, a pretty present, and a couple of flowers. Then there was a bright yellow happy face cookie.

"Because you're such a happy person." Mom said as she explained her choices. I was hugely flattered, frankly, since I see myself as rather glum sometimes. I do like to laugh and I am cheered and charmed by life at times. But there are times when I feel I'm a giant, sucking hole of negativity. I'd like people to think of me as positive and happy rather than pessimistic and sighing heavily. When I prize sincerity and honestly, it's hard for me to to project a more positive energy sometimes.

What I think I've learned so far in higher education is that experiences vary widely. I have personally had much better luck working for more established faculty members. Does that mean that all junior faculty are evil monsters who are out to take advantage of students? Not at all. Will I naturally gravitate toward older professors with whom to collaborate? Yes, I have. I find I'm more tense in meetings with up-and-coming researchers. While it's not fair, I don't trust them as much as those who are more established in the field.

Dawn likely has the opposite prejudice. She had a wonderful graduate experience working for an assistant professor, and has hardly had the best luck in her post-doc with older faculty members. So it seems to depend on a few personalities and the actual project, perhaps the funding situation, the other people in the lab, the needs and your skills, the timeline.

"I don't know what to say." I told Friend after I received the first email about my defense experience. "I don't know how I got through it - I just did. I don't know how to advise someone to go from her own misery because I'm still not OK with what happened to me. I've been largely unhappy here, have accomplished very little and ended up on anti-depressants and in therapy because I can't trust people or cope very well with life. I lost confidence that things will work out in the end. That people are inherently good and kind. And I don't know how to get it back."

She paused and considered me for a moment. "I don't know that the goal is to go back to how you felt before this all happened - to forget all the bad stuff and pretend it didn't exist."

She's right. There must be a way to balance the happy hope with a reality that sometimes leaves me disappointed.

I haven't yet found it.

I do know that it's not all bad. There are days when an analysis works and I'm thrilled. I really enjoy a vast majority of the people with whom I work. It's not all good, but it is continuing to get better for me. Honestly.

It's important for me to seek validation and joy outside my professional life too. I need to go to church, see my family, walk my dog, clean my house. If research starts to get painful - and it often does - I can come home and smile over my new bedspread. It's this deep, rich brown - lightweight and silky. I can look forward to my Origins appointment on Tuesday. I can pray or call home or cuddle with a very affectionate canine. Friend and I can meet for lunch. There are happy moments even when work is sucky.

When I first met Dr. Counselor, he shared with me a breathing exercise. He said that someone had a theory that panic was due to an error in breathing patterns. If one could control how they took in and pushed out air, then there was a feeling of calm and control over life in general.

"You exhale and push away the negative. Feel all the bad feelings being shoved far away from you. Then you have room to inhale and embrace the positive. The love and grace and kindness and hope has room to take hold because you made room to feel all of that."

I thought he had to be kidding. My life was just coming back together after I'd spent weeks weeping on my bathroom floor and he was giving me breathing exercises? Thank God for the pills, I thought, because therapy certainly wasn't going to help much.

Yet it has. Dr. Counselor is tricky in that he sometimes seems lame and harmless, but actually knows that of which he speaks. I find there is comfort in breathing. Focusing on the factors I can control, pushing the negative away and pulling the positive closer to me. I sometimes wrap myself around pain. I fret over Dawn. I worry I made a mistake in the analysis. I fear I'm doing a terrible job with Maria. What if Boss is disappointed in me? Or I somehow humiliate myself? Who might come along and tell me I'm not good enough? What if I'm really not smart or knowledgeable after all?

In those moments - when panic builds and I feel minuscule and defenseless - I breathe. In attempting to push those feelings away, I can remind myself of the successes and the goals. In those moments - and I've had them lying in bed, sitting with my laptop, working at my desk, dealing with traffic - I push away the bad and yank the good closer and feel more powerful.

There are terrible circumstances for some of us. I don't mean to minimize someone's struggles with a simple breathing technique - I'm truly sorry if you're suffering or scared. I know how that feels. I'm still working my way toward something I hope will make me happy - I'm not sure what that looks like. But I do hate to make you all sad along the way.