Little Gestures Mean so Much, Especially on the Dark Days

So, a little bit about me. I started my Ph.D. in Women's and Gender Studies at Emory University waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in 2003. Flash forward a decade to find me living in Virginia, mom of a super awesome baby girl, running a non-profit, teaching part-time at a university, and STILL. NOT. FINISHED.WITH.THE. #$#*@%!. DISSERTATION. 

To be honest, I wanted to quit. I had long since lost any perception of value in the degree I was pursuing. But it's not really like to me quit something academic. After Christmas (the day after, to be exact) in 2012, I really got to work. I had 3 or 4 badly written chapters already hammered out, and I had exactly 4 months to finish the entire opus. 

It sucked.

Every day I went to work at 8:30 am, and stayed after work until 2:00am writing. I ate way too much chocolate. I drank too much caffeine. I gained a lot of weight. I lost valuable time with my family and infant daughter. The days (and nights) during that period were dark. I honestly feel like I emerged from my dissertation writing marathon with a touch of PTSD. It's been almost 2 years now, and I'm only beginning to feel kinda normal again. [Aside - I mentioned the PTSD feelings with someone else who recently completed her dissertation, and it was a total bonding moment. For those of you out there struggling with an academic albatross, feel free to reach out to me. I'm a good listener, and it can help to talk!]

During that period, however, not all was lost. I managed to get by with the outstanding support of my dear hubby. Seriously. I would've been a crumpled mess of stress without him. 

I also had the support of my friends. On one of those dark days, I got an envelope in the mail from a local women's service organization that I have been a member of since 2006. Inside was a little purple organza baggy with a label: "Alysia's bag o' good vibes." Wow, did I ever need those. I don't think I've ever told those wonderful ladies how much I appreciated the simple gesture, but good vibes was exactly the medicine that I needed. 

I thought today that I would share the contents of that baggy with you, in case you need some good vibes too. Let the words sink in. You got this.

• The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it. - C.C. Scott
• I know God will not give me anything I can't handle... I just wish that He didn't trust me so much. - Mother Teresa
• In the end it's not the years in your life that count, but the life in your years. - Abraham Lincoln
• He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. - Friedrich Nietzsche
• I am the only author of the dictionary that defines me. - Star Jones
• Woman performs and engenders so much more than she can or should have to bear... that's how she finds that she can bear anything. - William Faulkner
• No cases of eyestrain have been caused by looking on the bright side of things. - Unknown
• Adversity is like a strong wind... it tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are. - Memoirs of a Geisha
• The darkest hour has only sixty minutes. - Morris Mandel
• A smile is a curve that sets everything straight. - Unknown
• Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats. - Voltaire
• We cannot direct the wind but we can adjust the sails. - Unknown
• Adversity does not build character... it reveals it. - Unknown
• Every day may not be good, but there's something good in every day. - Unknown
• You can tell how big a person is by what it takes to discourage her. - Unknown
• I try not to view obstacles in my life as challenges, but as confirmation of my fortitude. - Oprah
• What you do with your days is what you do with your life. - Anne Dilliard
• Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. - Helen Keller
• Things turn out best for the people who make the best out of the way things turn out. - Art Linkletter
• She who laughs, lasts. - Unknown
• For every day that there is sunshine, there will be days of rain; it's how we dance within them both that shows our love and pain. - Joey Tolbert
• Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and go do that because what the world needs is people who have come alive. - Howard Thurman
• What you get by reaching your destination is not nearly as important as who you will become by reaching your destination. - Unknown
• I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else. - Winston Churchill
• I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. - Edward Everett Hale
• Be a first-rate version of yourself, not a second-rate version of anyone else. - Judy Garland