At the Threshold
I sent off my final undergraduate thesis 24 hours before my mom was meant to arrive in LA, help me pack up my apartment and my life as a college student. 24 hours before then, I was studying for my last exam and confessing to my best friend and later boyfriend that I did in fact want to be “more than friends.”
I submitted my masters dissertation 48 hours before I woke at 3am with a chock full mini van to drive from California to Connecticut. With the same boyfriend in the passenger seat, I crossed state lines and through the threshold to begin my new life as a PhD Student at Yale.
I defended my PhD Prospectus 72 hours before packing up my apartment overlooking the New Haven Green and my tiny dog to board a plane taking us to our new life in the UK.
It would seem, I happen to have a knack for aligning every major move and transition period with a massive impending, dramatic deadline.
Each stage of my personal and professional life ebbs and flows in and away from one another. Like an hourglass, the central meeting point indicates a catalyst. A change in which a transformation takes place. One I hadn’t quite predicted. And one which I certainly wasn’t ready for.
Deadlines coincide with major life events.
An exam and my first heartbreak prompted by some mediocre boy.
The conclusion of my college days and my first long-term relationship.
My masters dissertation and moving to the other side of the country.
But now I am 30 years old, am 6 years into a PhD and life just seems to be coming fast in all directions.
“I thrive under pressure.”
The sentence which I have repeated like a mantra so many times that I now truly believe it. And not only that, I have a recorded history of proof to affirm that I, Kaelyn Apple, can perform under pressure. I can compete on a four legged animal jumping over wooden sticks under the critical gaze of my idols. I can ace an exam while nursing a broken heart. I can move to a new country because I choose to, despite having no concrete plan for doing so until about 30 days prior to departure.
What looks like a well orchestrated performance from outside feels like a beaker filling with boiling liquid solution threatening to burst through the glass.
I don’t actually know if I am good under pressure. I don’t sleep. My heart feels like it is pounding out of my chest and into my stomach and ears simultaneously. I eat too much or too little. And I fitfully relay my anxieties in an endless internal loop, like a VHS tape that has now cant help but scratch and skip from overuse.
But the truth is, regardless of whether I am “good” or “not good” under pressure, the reality is the same. I have a threshold to cross. A catalyst point to survive. And I don’t know how I’ll make it out the other side.
I have a deadline. Two hundred something days. Two hundred days to complete my PhD.
Not a deadline made by Yale. Not by my parents. Not by anyone else. Me.
I am the impetus for this pressure.
And in the more immediate future, I need to get a chapter to my advisor. To pull together a full month worth of discovery (all good but overwhelming). To get words on the page and prove the deadline is going to be met. To grant myself another bit of proof that I can and will finish this dissertation.
I have a pet peeve. I hate when people tell me to take a break. To make sure I rest. To take the pressure off.
This isn’t helpful.
This deadline and the pressure imposed is part of the lifecycle of scholarly work. We have long drawn out periods of reading, researching, writing, editing, etc. but eventually we have to pay the piper. To show up and not empty handed.
Life feels full on right now. In addition to trying to get the dissertation written in a timely manner, I am working with my partner to buy a house, we are revamping things for my community Accepted Society, and I am launching my Personal Branding course for Academics and Independent Scholars.
I know people will say to reduce what’s on my plate. I won’t nor do I want to.
Pressure is good.
This pressure, as challenging as it may be, is just that: a challenge.
A chance to show myself that I CAN cross this threshold. Because seeing what is on the other side is worth while.
It's really hard for us UK uni students who lived it, and a massive shock to the American students who come here and learn how our assignment deadlines work. During my MSc course at LSE, we had our lectures and then an INSANE amount of free time with some modules that had assignments due 2-3 months after the module was done, so you could easily sit around and then start research and writing just 4-5 days before (thanks ADHD). I thrived in it and usually got 70+ but I realise in retrospect it could have possibly been more if I started 3-4 weeks before the due date, but also I really don't know. I did the same for my 20k dissertation, except in the span of a month from complete scratch and I advise nobody do that even if you might get a good mark.
I relate to this so much. The deadlines are often self imposed, but the desire to be done feels like a burning rage. There are many things you can't do while in the dissertation phase because of the guilt of all the work that is always present to for the dissertation. Graduation feels like a shackle will be removed. However, I know this is a special time to really do the work of a historian. I don't want to wish this time away, but I also don't feel like I can't fully live my life until it is done.