Well hello there! I am back from the long hibernation from the real world that was “writing my dissertation”. Anyone that has been through the 5 to 7 year experience of pursuing his or her Ph.D. (I’m not including those rare lucky bastards that finished in 4) can sympathize with the high and lows, the joys and sorrows of the long journey. Now I have reached the crossroads and what a strange strange place it is.
I just so happened to finish in the depths of winter, as we turn the page to a new year and what feels like a new era in my life. Michael and I have moved 1200+ miles from our previous home in Columbia, MO now closer to my family in New England. We got engaged. We graduated. Yet, as any student that has worked tirelessly from 8AM to 10PM during the school year knows – when you reach the end you inevitably feel a little lost. It’s hard to put the brakes on from the momentum of a grueling daily routine. Many people say to me “You must feel so relaxed now!” or something to the effect of “Wow, what will you do with all the extra time you have?” I usually can’t help but laugh sarcastically and then feel slightly guilty at my rebuff of their enthusiams – but I don’t feel relaxed, and with 2 hours of commuting each day I don’t feel like I have a great deal free time either. Part of the immediate time-depletion is because of my commitment to get back to exercising. At the end of a few months of doing nothing but sitting in front of a computer 80 hours per week, I felt about ready to keel over and have a heart attack – so immediately back to the gym it was.
Excited as I am about getting back to my “normal” exercise routine I felt a little awkward about this change in behavior taking place in January. I’ve never been a big fan of New Year’s resolutions because the stakes seem so high, and the word failure seems so easy to toss around. It seems to make the most sense to tackle one resolution at a time (exercising, eating better, learning something new…) but I have SO much I want to do at this juncture in my life. I want to reconnect with friends and family I’ve missed for years now. I want to volunteer in my community. I want to take photographs of nature with good-old-fashioned film. I want to learn to play the guitar. I want to be nicer to my fiancé, regardless of whether he does the dishes. I want to read for pleasure, and finish the two books I’ve been muddling through for the past 4 years. I want to polish up on my Spanish speaking skills, and my knowledge of statistics. I still want to teach. I want to cook better, and learn to bake the kind of fancy cupcakes you see in magazines. Maybe most importantly, I want to feel more relaxed because I know it is the only way I can be better at everything else. So this New Year – I’m only going to make one resolution : to practice Mindfulness.What is mindfulness?
