My Phone is Off, and You Don't Need Me: A PhD Student Life

 Since 2014, I have been "on." 

What felt like every second of every day, I was checking my email, my texts, my work app texts. While this was partly self-imposed due to a paranoia that I would miss something, it was also very much expected that I would respond. That paranoia was confirmed, as those who did not respond immediately were chastised. Everywhere I looked, everywhere I went, I was surrounded by eyes and expectations. 

Being a salaried employee is wonderful and so secure, but it can go down a big hill on a little tractor so fast. There's a sense of ownership that comes alongside a steady paycheck that is inhuman. 

I even answered emails on my honeymoon. I answer emails at 1am in my bed. I answer phone calls in dead sleep two hours before the workday starts. I am dependable. 

I tried to create boundaries in my life, but after a certain point, where life begins and where work begins becomes so convoluted that you lose where you are in the world, outside of your worth to the system as a whole. 

My husband, in his kindness, allowed me to put trust in an opportunity. I left my job. The release was not immediate. Halfway through my graduate assistant orientation for my PhD program, I felt a sudden surge of joy when a meeting ran long: I work 20 hours a week. When those 20 hours conclude, c'est le fin. Time taken in one place is deducted in another. 

My mornings since the beginning of August have been spent drinking coffee with my husband in the soft sun of the morning. We cook lunches together before parting for our separate office spaces upstairs. Though it will soon be dark when we conclude our work projects, we will have been able to spend the best part of the day and the best parts of ourselves with one another--not the war-warn exhausted shells we have been able to give over at the end of the days. 

There is such joy in the freedom to learn. I can give of myself freely, but I am at no one's beck and call. I am not so naive to deny that a PhD might very well be brutal, but I will not deny the intensity of the freedom, the joy, the release that I have been granted so graciously. 

The Concrete Spider Web

If you've never been in Dallas, know that you are missing out on a serious civil engineering masterpiece/disaster center.

Roads on roads on roads.

In a ten mile drive, I can switch highways more than four times and have it take me over an hour to make the drive.

Other times, I can make a 30 mile trip in 30 minutes.

It's a death trap where I spend the majority of my time thinking, "THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS".

I am in Texas this time for a 3 week recruiting trip. Since last Sunday night, I've battled head on the pit of despair through the Dallas streets. Sometimes, it's nice. I have time to process the day and think.

Other times, my hands and heart sweat so badly that I can hardly think.

After a week of that, it was nice to have a break in the form of my husband.

Since I'm gone for so long, my university flew him out to me for the weekend.

Even though part of that was spent recruiting (what a champ!), it was also so nice to be able to chill, watch HGTG and FoodNetwork, and wander the DFW area.

Notable highlights in our shopping ventures were introducing Jay to World Market and Half Price Books.

He was just the cutest exploring all the different cultures and thinking up ways he could recreate all the different wood pieces.
Half Price Books was a perfect storm. Two nerds, together, and inexpensive books and nerd paraphernalia. We ended up with quite the haul.

Then, we grabbed a crepe together at a sweet little cafe called Frogg, and made our way to the airport.

It's not very nice to abandon your husband two months after you get married, but we are making it work. Texting is a beautiful thing.

When I get unstuck from the tangles of traffic, it'll be very nice to go home.

On Being Adult

Two weekends ago, I traveled down to Dallas for a college friend's wedding.

It was beautiful and strange to see her get married. She's had a pretty crazy journey through the past several years. These friends' weddings are a fun time to be able to get back together with people I was close to in college and have now been dispersed throughout the states.

These girls comprised a good portion of my freshmen year hallway, except a little sister, a husband (who was in the male half of our freshmen friend group) and a hometown best friend that have since been added as honorary members.

For the purpose of consolidation, two work friends and I decided to drive together and picked up a student who needed to attend a friend's wedding of her own.

She was very perky. One of the questions she posed to me on the way there was if I was sad that we didn't get spring break like the rest of the campus.

It resulted in this conversation:

"Well dude, when you become an adult--"
"--I AM an adult!!"
"No. You are not. Anyway. When you become an adu--"
"--which I am already"
"No. You are not. Anyway. When you--"
"I'm already an adult though."
"Do you work a 9-5? No? Do you pay your own bills? No? Have you ever lived on your own for any amount of time? No? Not an adult. Now then. Allow me to answer your question."

I went on to explain to her that when you become an adult, you learn to appreciate different things. Life is not a hallway of your best friends, playing music on the quad, learning, and every meal prepared for you by someone else.

I've learned to appreciate the good coupon (there was an online deal for half off pizza from Dominos last week that saved a ton when I went on a school visit), the way I can make a shower floor shine, when I get to go to the post office, a well written grocery list, a pencil skirt that is functional, fashionable, and comfortable, the fact that on spring break we get to wear jeans to work.

It's a different life, this chapter of realism. It takes a lot of energy to be a college student. Ha. This slower pace works well for me, but it is funny. From her perspective, it all sounds miserable what I said; but those are all things I genuinely appreciate about the day to day.

Different years will bring different stories, and this is mine right now: the daily grind of the newly adult.

Day Date

I spent the entirety of yesterday with prong two of the Trifecta: Caity Ruth (Kullen) Roberts. Try saying that five times fast.

At long last, we found a slot of time between her married life and busy schedule and my unmarried life and apparent inability to accomplish the one goal which would enable me to go and see her (paper writing...I finished, by the way! Only edits and online submission stand between me and freedom now). 

The day started with coffee, as it should. We sat and chatted for I don't know how long in my living room, Cubby ever watchful. 

Then, after what seemed like an endless struggle against mutual indecisiveness, we headed on down to Brookside. It's this super trendy part of town with restaurants, coffee shops, and shops with stuff that are super cool, but you can't help but wonder who the heck buys from them. 

In Brookside, we split lunch and had high-five one of three for the day. When you share food and end up with the perfect amount, you need to high-five. There's an unspoken law. 

Shades of Lame came next. It's actually called Shades of Brown, but my camp friend Annie Paige always used to refer to it as Shades of Lame, and I've never been able to rewrite it back to the original in my mind. 

Probably because I think it's a definite shade of lame. It's like if a hipster were on hipster steroids. Except that it's so hipster, it's not even hipster anymore. It's just kind of uppity and I feel judged when I go in. Because they are, in fact, judging me. 

But Caity likes it, and anything with Caity is fun. So, we drank an eggnog latte and a brown sugar latte and talked and talked (so sorry to fellow coffee goers). On the list of subjects were people we went to high school with, how everyone we've ever met seems to be getting engaged, Joel Osteen, books we're reading or want to read, and how creepy the guy across from us was. 

Seriously, he was either tripping or had some sort of serious social dysfunction, but this guy across from us just sat there, blatantly staring, grinning, shaking his head, grunting or chuckling in response to our conversation, and giving us thumbs-ups. 

Then he'd leave. 

Then he'd come back. 

In the end, we left and went on a quest to find little HayHay a Christmas present (SHE'S CURRENTLY ON A PLANE HOME TO US OHMYGOSH). 

Mostly it just ended in us feeling really bad for the overly friendly store owners. "Well, she doesn't wear jewelry, she doesn't like trinkets, she doesn't do a whole lot of recreational reading, she lives in China, so it has to be small, no, still no trinkets"...etc. 

Usually, to find her a present, we just have to wander around stores until the muse reveals the correct gift. It's a serious struggle. Thus, the reason I didn't come up with anything to give her from NI. 

Caity, on the other hand, has a veritable stash in my closet. She's the easiest person for me to find gifts for. 

The rest of the evening was a blur of more chatting, searching, food, and ice cream on the kitchen floor. 

The best purchase (only purchase) of the day was a bowl shaped like a lettuce leaf. Since my freshman year of college, I've kind of been amassing ceramic cups, plates, bowls in the shape of fruits and vegetables. Not like have pictures of fruits or veggies, they actually look like they're made of them. 

I have a plumb cup, an apple cup, an asparagus cup, a lettuce bowl, and I used to have three more cups made of carrots, cabbage, and corn, respectively, but I have since given those away.  Jansie hates them. I think they're great. 

It was great, having Caity back. I'm never worried about our friendship, but it's such a pleasure to interact in-person instead of Skyping. 

I guess we sort of take each other for granted in that way, but it's a good way. We can move apart, make new friends, and alter the make-up of our everyday lives, but I always know she'll answer her phone if I need her to think up a word for me and she knows I'll always edit her writing. 

We'll forever share inside jokes, books, and our life stories. She's my best friend, what can I say?