The last 5 seconds of summer before 5 years of Ph.D.

Clearing out the behemoth of what I’m supposed to call my closet makes it all feel too real.

My friends keep asking me, “How are you feeling about Ph.D.? Are you excited?” Yes, I am excited. Buried within my deadpan voice and lack-of-cheekbone smile, there’s a giddy giggle for every time someone calls me “Doctor.” But I’ve told them a more honest truth.

“I’m scared.”

“That’s just because you want to do well. And I know you will do well,” a friend reminds me. I know she’s right. In my head, the questions of “am I doing enough?” and “what if I’m not good enough?” are all evidence supporting her claim.

I haven’t even started school yet.

So, I followed the advice of what all therapists say when you’re overwhelmed by a big task. “Take it step by step.” Except, those steps I took included:

1. Passing my driver’s knowledge test the third time;
2. Blasting Fable Ultracode right before I went to sleep to produce absolutely nothing;
3. Calling my dental and medical insurance companies to not get wisdom tooth surgery;
4. Watching Spider-Man: Brand New Day when I said I was available to meet on Friday;
5. Receiving my license after going on every curb possible;
6. And taking a melatonin gummy at 10 PM last night to get rid of a migraine…

In that order. Essentially every detour possible with the signs pointing every which way. It’ll be a wonder if I can push this paper to a September submission.

At every point of the summer, I have tried to find a distraction for the real questions at hand. I use these barely qualified obligations to give myself the last bit of life before I’m thrown into the hell of academia. What I really need to do is preload the voice of a friend for when anxiety gets to me and remember I’m smart, confident, and qualified.

Something I’ve thought about a lot recently—and it might seem a bit silly and overly simplistic—is that life is just like doing a Ph.D. We constantly seek to answer the biggest research question of them all, “Who am I?” And the only person who can answer that question, that pushes the boundary of what the current state of knowledge is, is ourselves. I find this framing of life both comforting and daunting.

I dumped my closet into my suitcase and booked it a one way ticket to Champaign. Hopefully, the next five years in the cornfields begin to answer my questions.