2008--Will I be Good Enough This Year?

2008...wow, gotta say, it's already starting off scarey for me. I have so much to accomplish this year--most importantly, I MUST finish my dissertation. It's been the cause of my emotional and inner strength's deterioration for some time now. December, as hectic as it was, coudln't have been more amazing! But my, how much has changed in my life! My husband and I just shared our first Christmas with our baby bear, Ruben!


I try to recount the happy memories of the holidays, all the blessings I have because of my son and husband, and delicious meals we make to sate our tummies and have them smile from the inside."





























Even now, the peace and ease I felt only two weeks ago in the month of December has melted away and a feeling of dread is washing through me.

To be more frank, I am facing one of my greatest fear--to make myself vulnerable on hundreds of paper and hope professors I respect and studied under for years will think me worthy to be a colleague. That's what this is all about...can I measure up? Will they say that my ideas and writing is good enough?

How the hell did I get here? I spent all my formative years avoiding scrutiny. I was a rebel! I was unapologetically irreverant about everything. I didn't need my parents' approval for anything. I was going to be me and only me and if my parents or the world couldn't take it, well then, screw 'em!
But how long can most of us live like that? At some point, we want...hell, need approval--to be told you are good enough. But now, I feel like this pinheads chip away at me with every critique and comment of every line of every page of every chapter of my soul. They appear to hold the key to my self-worth with just the scribble of their signature on my yet-to-be-completed dissertation--a document that is only suppose to introduce me into their fold; not boast as my greatest accomplishment!

Well...regardless, I have to get it done and done very soon. I know that I will be walking down some dark paths to get to the Emerald City (even though I already know the Wizard is not some all mighty being). I hope this journey doesn't make me any more jaded and resentful of academia than I already am.

I hope it doesn't make me into one of those professors I've come to despise--the ones who lose a bit more of their humanity with every passing year.