Guilt

Remember that time that I was a PhD student? Yeah, I seem to have forgotten.

Over the weekend, I pulled out my dissertation proposal. And then I cried. For real.

It is hard to admit that I had not looked at it in almost a year. And when I finally pulled it out again, I just felt lost and overwhelmed. I could not even begin to tell you what I had been working on last summer. What I still needed to read, or even what I had already finished reading. I definitely cannot identify where I left off or where I need to get started now, outside of the notes from my faculty member. Which are basically awful. How did I let it get this far? I'm just really sad, and disappointed in myself, and not sure how to restart. At this point, I wonder if it would just be easier to start over.

My supervisor asked me yesterday if I wanted to finish. He said that it is okay if I don't, a lot of people do not finish. But he said that if I decide not to finish, I have to be okay with it and let it go.

I have thought about it a lot, and lost a lot of sleep. I do want to finish. I have put in too much time, energy, and money to stop now. I still want to propose in the fall. But I need to commit to buckling down and getting it done. I need to work on it every single day. And, most importantly, I have to find some way to get back into it.

I thought comps were hard, but this is definitely the hard part. Sigh.