that thing we do

Grad school.

Let me set the stage for you: It's the first day of my second week, and I'm already crying in the car on the way home. This is going to be so much fun.

Here's the conversation I heard that caused me to have an emotional breakdown:

postdoc: Hey what time are you going to be here until?
undergrad: Probably 7:30.

**a side note, this is somewhat exaggerated for comic relief, because I did not actually have an emotional breakdown in lab, and I'm not this emotionally unstable most of the time, but here you have it.

me on the other side of the lab bench: ...

There were about 800 thoughts running through my head after this. Because *I* can't stay until 7:30. I have no idea what you would do in lab at 7:30. I assume the same things you do from the hours of 9 to 5? Is there something special that happens after 5 in lab? Do elves come out and whisper sweet nothings at the PCR machines? Do the techs turn into pumpkins? Whatever happens...I will never know.

And here comes this recurring theme that apparently is the story of my life: giving myself a hard time for things beyond my control. Do they have graduate program for that because if they do I would totally win.

As much as I would love to put my head down, do my work, be so secure with myself that I don't give a shit what anyone says/thinks about me...the reality is that's not me. And that's also something I need to stop fighting. I can't give myself a hard time for giving myself a hard time. I can't beat myself up for caring what other people think about me. The only think I can do is to try to remind myself that it doesn't matter as much as I think it does.

I started out not knowing whether or not to bring up that I have a kid. It didn't come up in interviews, because in the question of "why do you want to go to graduate school" the fact that I have a kid has absolutely zero relevance. But who I am as a person, and who I am as a scientist? Having a kid has 100 percent abso-fucking-lutely relevance on who I am. Why do I keep fighting that? I'm going to stop fighting that. So much so that I am going to start walking around with a sign on my head that says 'emotionally unstable single parent' because that's who I am, dammit, and it might help people deal with me.

It leads me to this funny thing that I never imagined I'd have to deal with, which is 'coming out' as a single parent. When you meet a twenty-five year old that's still wearing a uniform of chacos, skirts with elastic waists and t-shirts, your first thought is not immediately, "this person had a child". and then upon finding out that said person does have a child, your subsequent thought is not "this person is a single parent." Our society is many things, hetero-normative, democratic, fairly misogynistic, to say a few, and in academia, if you are a woman who has a kid, you are over 30 and married. (If this is not the majority, feel free to correct me. I just took an informal tally in my head to get those demographics.) I'm not out to "subvert the dominant paradigm" or anything, much to the chagrin of my high school self, but here I am. (Also high school self would never have picked this particular dominant paradigm to subvert.)

You know what I do between the hours of 5 and 7:30? I drive home, I pick up Lena, I talk to her teachers, and I talk to other parents. I make dinner, I do the dishes, I get Lena in the bath, I wash Lena, I tell Lena to floss her teeth, I help Lena brush her teeth because mommy-cannot-afford-any-more-cavities, I get Lena into bed, and I read to her for about twenty minutes before it's time for bed. Here's the million dollar question. Why do I not count this as doing something productive? Why do I not give myself credit for this? Why can I not cut myself one iota of slack, because this is work too?  This is not trivial. This deserves just as much credit as setting up a PCR reaction at seven in the evening.

I'm reading this book, sort of, it's called The Price of Motherhood: Why the most important job in the world is still the least valued, and I sit there and nod my head and hmm and haww at the world and how society devalues mothers/parenting, and this is bad that other people do this how can we change that, and then I realize that I am doing this to myself. I am devaluing arguably the most important part of my life---for what, one more experiment squeezed into the day?

REVELATION.

I emailed my dad right after the 7:30 conversation was overheard, saying, holyshit I'm out of my league I should have gone to a 'soft' school like UNC ha! I can't be here until 7:30 omgi'mgoingtodie. (I think I literally ended this email with the really mature phrase of 'not ok. i'm not ok.') and my dad emails back this, because he figured all this out a while ago, that it's really all about doing the best with what you have, and the things that you tend to think are important aren't necessarily the things that are most important in the long run:

I hate to break the news, but News Flash, you will get a Ph.D. and it's pretty unlikely it will be nobel laureate work. I'm not knocking you, I'm just looking at the statistics. So work hard, focus on the science, because it is cool, and try to remember that you and Lena trump the world because you're two of the three most awesome girls I know.
Pops 

omg my dad doesn't think I can win the Nobel Prize. What's up with that?? Supportive parents. I can't imagine what it's like to have some of those.

Different shades of blue

I applied to PhD programs this past fall. Because I really want to go to graduate school for the biological sciences. I've been working in a lab the past three years, and I love it. I love the technical work. I love thinking about my projects. In the past year I've started to have my own ideas. I've written a paper, I've written a fellowship proposal. I had someone tell me that my fellowship proposal probably wouldn't work, and I really didn't understand what I was talking about.

This was the best feeling in the world.

Real scientists were taking me seriously. And I was learning, and it was exciting, and thrilling, and hard but so much fun.

So I figured finally graduate school was the right thing for me.

I applied, and my list waxed and waned from the summer until the fall. Originally I thought “Wheee! Everywhere!” and then I sort of came to the realization that what was the real likelihood of me moving to New Mexico because of some wackadoodle interdisciplinary science Phd program. See also, Colorado, Tennessee, Washington, New York City, Palo Alto, and San Diego.

My final list included Berkeley, UCLA, UNC, duke, and NC State.

Berkeley was an outright rejection. (Their loss!) (But Abby Dernburg, called one of my letter writers about me! See: real scientists are taking me seriously!) (Just not the admissions committee.)

UCLA I haven’t heard back from, so I’m pretty sure I’m not going to.

UNC, duke and State all called me within a month of me submitting my applications, and asked me for interviews.

I had a lot of fun at UNC’s and State’s interviews, and by the time I interviewed at State I had gotten my acceptance from UNC, and I was excited. I was definitely going somewhere for grad school, and UNC--at the very least--was perfect for me. Lena’s in Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools, there are a bunch of new faculty that I’m excited about, it would be great to have a bunch of people ‘looking out for me’...I was happy about the prospect of attending UNC-CH (or State, still, at this point) as a phd student.

Until I interviewed at duke.

Just in case you are not aware, there is a huge rivalry between UNC and duke. And as someone who both grew up in Chapel Hill and attended UNC as an undergraduate, I pretty much can’t even look at dark blue without cringing and trying to suppress the automatic hatred for the person wearing those colors. Only recently has it occurred to me that this must be what being in a cult feels like. So I went into my duke interview with a healthy bias against them. Because duke is the root of all evil, and the baby blue runs strong through my veins.

So I was just as surprised as anyone when I done with the first full day of interviews thinking to myself, I belong here.

It just felt so right. The interviews were tough, intense, but fun. I had so much fun. And it was everything. It was the science, but even more, it was the place. I loved my student host, how enthusiastic she was about her science, how seriously she treated being a student. I’m ready to treat being a student seriously. I’m not just going to grad school because I want to go to grad school, I want to go to grad school to work really hard, learn a ton, and get my phd.

The one thing I didn't expect to experience was how good it felt just walking around the campus. I've never really spent any serious time on duke’s campus (see: root of all evil) and it was beautiful. It was also really fun just walking around somewhere new. And I didn't know that my body was craving that newness. The--not recognizing every barista at the coffee shop feeling. The--not seeing someone that knew you when you had braces feeling. I have so many wonderful wonderful memories from Chapel Hill and UNC, but there’s also a fair amount of not fun ones. The heartbreaks. The embarrassing moments. Things I’m ashamed of. And duke has none of that. I just...I didn't realize how much I wanted to be in a new place. To have a fresh start.

And to my parents, my wonderful wonderful parents--who are so happy when I am happy--which in the past five years has not been a given, are so proud of me for choosing to attend duke university. Because it is the right place for me. Because in the end it was the easiest decision I have ever made in my entire life. And even though my mom has banned any duke paraphernalia from entering her house, they are still being my number one biggest supporters.

They brought Lena home from a gymnastics meet one night, her tongue a brilliant blue from cotton candy, and she bounds into the house to greet me, jubilantly saying, “Mom, my tongue is duke blue.”

Whoa there kiddo, let’s take this a little slower. Mommy’s got 20+ years of indoctrination against duke university to work through.

But having a family that is happy and proud of you is a great place to start.

(I still cannot for the life of me bring myself to actually capitalize “duke university”, which is a step up from spelling it “dook”.)

I’m going to duke! I’m so excited.

Except tonight, I hope everyone at duke cries like little tiny babies are our Tar Heels crush, crush! I say, the hopes and dreams of seth curry and ryan kelly and all the overpriviledged new jersey undergrads who couldn't get into a real ivy league school.