So far from where I was...

I look back on me about 4 years ago and I was hustling through the Sociology graduate program with my eyes on the Ph.D.

Fast forward and I am STILL mid-way through a thesis, untouched in more than a year and I want only to wrap it up and be done. That is if I can even muster the will to wrap it up--I'd settle for just be done, degree or no degree.

I'm into yogic bliss now--deadlines don't exist in my world. The only hustling I do is back and forth to violin lessons, acting workshops and other such activities for my kids. I immerse myself in my own writing, not dead white guys formulating hypotheses on the social behaviors of humans.

But damn it all to hell, I'm going to do it. I've decided to finish the god damn thesis and be done with it--have the damn Masters degree because that's what I paid for some $50,000 in student loans later.

I've realized, however, that the student loans bought more than my education, they bought me time at home with my children when my jackass husband went AWOL. I'd do it again.

I needed a break after school, before my thesis, but rather than just allowing that, I pushed myself just as hard as I'd pushed all along and my burnout was palpable.

The time has come and I must finish what I started because I deserve the M.S. at the end of my name for all the nights I never went to bed, for all the hours I spent away from home, for all the papers I wrote (and well), for all the research I poured over, for all the books I read, for all the presentations and debates along the way.

Most of all, I just want it. I secretly long for the student life again--sociology became my love and I still revel in the social world, especially the individual level.

I want to come out of my closet and claim my prize.