It's a mess up in here...

Welcome to my dissertation disaster zone:

A disaster on the ground; a disaster in my head.

Until today, when I had a moment of realization.  

It went like this:

Oh! I can do this!

It might feel messy, and like there are a million jumbles in my head instead of words, and a million piles of papers other people have written on my floor instead of a million pages that I've written myself flowing gracefully out of my printer--but,

 as Anne Lamott writes,

'You start with where you are, and you flail around for awhile, and if you keep doing it, every day you get closer to something good.'

I've been flailing around for a long while now, but I've been keeping on,

and--I think it is safe to say--

I am getting closer!