Dissertation Love

Remember how I told my friends I'd see them in May?

Canceling my life in order to graduate, I said "please extend as much grace to me as you've got", because

a) I don't have time for you  and b) Even if I see you, I will probably take advantage of you.

You see, I have found that in this season my dissertation brain does not easily allow for fluffy niceties.  It seems that any kind of filter I may have at one time possessed that might have said things like:

"Lauren--you probably should think about how to say that differently"

or even

"Lauren--maybe that's something to keep to yourself"

....is OFF.

It does not seem that dissertation brain allows for social graces.

In fact, my dissertation brain does not seem to allow for a lot of things.  Things like, oh--I don't know--turning the oven on when one is trying to make dinner?  Taking the parking ticket out of the machine when one needs it to get out of the parking garage?

Dissertation brain, in point of fact, is incredibly deceiving.  It allows me to believe with all of my heart that my cell phone has been left at home, while also allowing me to tell people I will call them on my way home anyway--only for me to arrive home in order to find that it had been in my bag the whole time.

And dissertation brain does not seem to discriminate--time of day, type of interaction...doesn't matter.  A struggle, all of it.

And yet? These friends of mine have been remarkably kind.

They have come over to my house

to make me a breakfast of champions.

They have sent food home with me if by chance they know they will run into me,

or have delivered it if they have known they won't.

There has even been an occurrence of grace by one who knows far more than most others the full reality of dissertation brain:

[Housemates, my thanks will never meet your sacrifice.  And, by the way--the coffee grinder does apparently work after all...]

And in the midst of it all, I find that it is awfully freeing--to know that one is loved, no matter one's bad behavior.

Thank you friends.  You do not know how much I need you, nor how much I appreciate you!

Now, back to it.  Where did my computer go?

[:-}]