Birthin' Babies

I took the weekend off from writing. You see, my dissertation is finished...to my committee...ahhhh.

Yesterday, I took the day to just enjoy it and think back over the past three and a half years. It's been a whirlwind. Scarlet O'Hara might not have known about birthin' babies, but I do--both the human and doctoral variety. At the end of the day, they are amazingly similar.

In the beginning, it starts with such an innocent, simple idea. Let's have a baby. Let's get a doctorate. You know it's a journey. You know it's a lot of work. But...at that point...you know nothing.

You start reading. You take some classes. You get more advice than you could ever use or really want. You have big ideas and big dreams. Everything is shiny and new, tucked away in files and drawers. It's neat and tidy.

Then the real work begins. A baby crying in the night. A proposal that needs tweaked. A dissertation that blows up. Hours and hours of cleaning up mess and reveling in the shiny moments--the moments when all the world feels right before it gets so hard again.

That baby becomes an extension of you. It's a piece of your identity--your soul. And you send it out into the world, to your committee. And you hold your breath, and you hope it's treated nicely...and I'm still hoping.