Okay. So it's been a bad week. A bad 10 days. But whatever, right? I want you to read this, future me, whenever there's another week like this one, because we both know it's not the worst you've had - not by a mile - and it won't be the last of its kind.
So last week was bad. Yes, you didn't expect to feel like this so soon into the masters course that was the first step on your path of higher academia. You didn't expect to be so stressed three weeks in. You didn't expect to have, for the first time in your whole life, missed a lecture because you genuinely forgot it was on. Navigating that was a learning curve; suddenly learning that you are not this impenetrable organisation machine, and that something finally slipped through the cracks. It worried you. It plagued you for days, wondering how it happened and why on earth you dropped the ball.
You've felt down all week. Like the last stages of your dissertation all over again, but this time you've barely even started. You'd understand this feeling if it was at the end of the most stressful time of the year - but it's only the beginning. And that scares the hell out of you. And it's okay. Because remember this time two years ago when you had to turn in the proposal for your first dissertation, and you looked at that template asking you to write down your stellar idea that would fill a whole 12,000 words and you panicked, and cried in the shower, and didn't know how on God's green earth it was possible for you to ever write so much about one subject, when you weren't even sure what your dissertation was going to be.541Please respect copyright.PENANAzXBhf7cQWc
And them remember how it morphed before your eyes? Well, this one will too. Remember how you started out with the most basic idea, a frame, a skeleton, and with each draft and each revision and each email exchange with your supervisor, muscle was added or bones evolved. Remember how different that finished product looked from what you outlined in that proposal? This one will too.541Please respect copyright.PENANAQFK4tvIkK3
Remember how you panicked, worried for days, looking at your bibliography, convinced it was too small? Remember how when you asked Kathryn if it was enough, she nodded vigorously and said "of course it is. That will be fine". This will be fine too.
It's a long, laborious and ultimately solitary journey that you're on. Trawling the internet for five hundred year old sources can be the most demoralising thing ever. It can take hours, days, and you will be fruitless. It is frustrating. And there will be days when its cold and raining, and you will sit at your laptop with your head in your hands, wishing that you were better, or wishing that you could read Latin, or wishing that you studied modern history instead, because it would be so much easier.541Please respect copyright.PENANAL49UnvA8aY
Maybe it would be. It'd certainly be easier finding material. But that's not you. Next time you contemplate what life would be like if your main interest was world war 2, or the foreign policy of the 1930s or something just as dreadfully dull, remember the thrill that you get when you find what you want. When you finally find a source that says what you want it to. That feeling when you can physically feel everything coming together, like a thread being pulled, welding two parts of fabric together. Remember that feeling, that warmth in your chest and that rush of excitement, when you are fully engrossed in the reading and you realise that this is what you want your life to be about. About people who have been dead for hundreds of years. It's not to everyone's tastes, and people won't get it - you're the history geek(TM). You've owned that, turned that once-used insult into something else. So own this.
When you feel invisible, or not good enough, I want you, future me, to think back to this summer. Think back to graduation, and being presented with an outstanding achievement award, because you are good enough. It doesn't feel like it right now, but it didn't back then, either. Last year, when you had an emotional breakdown every other day, when the words 'how's the dissertation coming?' made you want to scream, when you burst into tears on the bus home because it was too much to handle. And then remember how you almost cried in relief and happiness when you got the marks back and it was the highest scoring piece of work you've written to date. Remember how you felt on top of the world? Remember that feeling. Keep it in your chest, and when the day comes - because it will - that this whole process gets on top of you again, remember that. Remember this. Read these words.541Please respect copyright.PENANATbz81LL2Mi
The road ahead is long. It stretches far ahead and we can't see how it ends up. The next twelve months will be difficult. When the thought crosses your mind that you can't write a 15,000 word dissertation, I want you to go upstairs and open the chest next to the drawers, and pull out the pink folder with the copy of your 12,000 word undergrad dissertation. I want you to flick through the pages, and I want you to know that you can do this. I want you to look at that framed certificate you were presented with, and know that you're not invisible. You've got this. And if you carry on after this, and you go for that Mphil or pHd that you so desperately want right now, then know that you've got that, too. It seems like a pipe dream, right now. One day I want to look back at the undergrad stress, laugh and carry on with my phd. That's the dream. That's where you want to end up. So let's get there. Sure, everyone else will have full-time jobs and you'll still be a student, and Jesus, if you feel like you're in a rut now, then what will it be like when you're 26 and still in education, when most of your friends left five years before? You're after something bigger. Who knows where you'll end up, but try and enjoy figuring it out.
You'll wonder why you're doing this. You did today. Sat there, idly wondering why you put yourself through this. You know how it makes you feel. Sitting at a laptop, researching people five centuries dead is a lonely process. There will be days where the absolute lack of human contact will make you feel worthless. There will be times when it will be weeks without seeing your friends. Your Facebook group chats will be silent, and you will feel like curling into a ball because it feels like no one cares. You will be irritable and short tempered, you won't leave the house for days because the moment you do the guilt starts. You'll hardly sleep, because every moment spent sleeping is a moment not working. You won't read anything unrelated to your dissertation, because you don't have the time. But you do. Take a minute. Breathe.541Please respect copyright.PENANAtEt4nrFVgs
You can do this. When you sit pondering why you're doing this, because you know how shitty it makes you feel, remember how much you love this. It doesn't feel like it right now, I know. It's exhausting and there's no break, it's stressful and it feels like it crawls into your very soul and hollows you out. You will feel invisible. You will feel like you're stuck in a rut whilst everyone else moves on with their lives. You'll sit and cry in the shower. You'll get angry and want to delete the whole file.541Please respect copyright.PENANA6NmMJNxpp0
But that's just the way it is. You will get like this. And, even as I'm writing this, I'm wondering what the hell the point is, because is it really worth feeling this way for months at a time?541Please respect copyright.PENANADWLbxSkhnh
Yes. It is. Because, Jesus, you love this. You do. It is all so, so worth it. Think back to last year, and how bad it got back then. Then remember how it all paid off.541Please respect copyright.PENANAHVhCyhHmjl
You're not invisible. You've got this. You've done it before, and you'll do it again.541Please respect copyright.PENANAvdukSKwXhO
Good luck.541Please respect copyright.PENANAk97pmKjUTT
xox541Please respect copyright.PENANAl3EVcCbCn5