Well, it's back to work. Vacation: Over.
I know, I know: Folks in academia do not get winter "breaks" or summer "vacations." No, writing a dissertation is not "just" writing a paper. These are some of the consistent, annoying myths that we have tried to bust time and time again. (For example, see this perspective.) There is always something more to do, right? Some manuscript that we could be revising, some grant proposal we could be writing, some email we could be answering, some networking we could be attempting, some book we could be (finally) getting around to reading, some literature search we could be conducting...
But this past December I gave up the ghost and actually took a break. A real break. I played with my daughters--especially with the six-room all-wood doll house, furniture, and extended Black family that my mother-in-law and I got a little too much pleasure out of. ("Girls, don't you want us to play doll house with you? No? You sure?") We went to Camp Snoopy, and out to eat at new places. We ordered movies on PPV and ate much too much popcorn. We stayed up late and slept in late, too. Even an unexpected car breakdown couldn't mute our joy.
And now that I am back to work, I should be full of regrets, right? All the built up work, all the lost momentum, all the realization about what I could have done with the time. "A moment in the dollhouse, a lifetime in the ABD house" kind of thing, right?
Well, not really.
I guess that would be my answer to this father who asks here for advice about finding ways to get school work done on home days while he's caring for his daughters. I know his daughters and I know school work. I'd choose the kids. I understand the very real needs for timely degree completion: emotional, relational, financial among them. I understand. But I am not entirely convinced that fitting school work into home work will always result in better, more efficient scholarship. I am not entirely convinced that in a (hopefully) long biographical arc one semester versus two (or even three or more...) will make that big of a difference in when a dissertation gets done.
By this I mean that if I am at my retirement party, age 85 (yes, I plan to still be working that long--I'm getting a later start than many!), will a few months now matter? And if I do not make it to 85--if I only have five years on this earth? Well, then it definitely does not matter. In that event I will be much happier that I spent two weeks in December of 2005 facilitating high-level doll house negotiations about who can be the big sister or the bunny or if it was OK for the little wooden commode to go in the children's room instead of the bathroom than working on a dissertation.
Maybe this attitude is due to the losses I experienced this past year--seemingly more deaths than usual (or maybe I am just getting at that age where deaths seem to confront and affront me more personally). There was a period when I dreaded the phone's ringing, afraid that what I'd hear over the earpiece upon answering was news of the death of another family member, another friend, another parent or spouse of a friend, another colleague from my master's program, another someone whose face I had not seen in years but whose name instantly invoked it.
No, getting back to work is not that hard. Or at least, I choose to make it not difficult, or to define it as not difficult. At the risk of comforting the myth-believers, I'll choose to believe that--and behave as if--completing a dissertation is not that hard. There are many other tasks and jobs in life that are harder, that have more serious consequences. Trying to figure out the life-sized world when you are five and three quarters. Working in a coal mine. All sorts of things.
There is more. Maybe one never gets that distinguished, long career if one doesn't give up some family time now. Maybe mothers and fathers who accomplish big life goals (ahem, like finishing dissertations) are better role models for their children than parents who do not. Maybe future regrets are unavoidable, no matter how you work out "balance" in the present. Maybe-- Well, there are a lot more maybes, and a lot more to say on this topic, but like I said, I'm getting back to work now.
OK, so it's back to work.
For real, this time.
Posted by perry032 at January 6, 2006 12:12 PM | TrackBack