More Soon: On Playing the Long Game in Graduate School

There’s a faculty member in my department who I go to with any (and all) miscellaneous questions. To illustrate the ridiculous nature of something I may send her, I point to a recent email in which I asked her if, instead of writing a boring ol’ dissertation, I could just send her, K, and sassy, snarky emails for the next five years and compile those ramblings into something resembling a dissertation (spoiler alert; no… the same answer that she gave me when I asked if I could have no advisors and the department could quote “just trust me”).

When she ends her emails to me, there’s usually still a lot to talk about regarding one question or the other. Basically, we’re in a never-ending loop, separating for a bit, then coming back together as if pulled by a magnetic force. Because of this, 90% of her emails to me end with this—

More soon,
A

The first time I saw this phrase, “more soon,” was when she used it. It’s rather innocuous, not flashy, gets the job done…and yet, it stuck with me then and it sticks with me now. It’s different from “talk soon,” which simply implies a conversation that will be happening soon. It’s different from “see you soon,” which simply implies a meeting of some kind.

There is nothing simple about “more.” More could mean anything; and in the context of the questions I ask, it may well be. More answers? Better yet, more questions? More knowledge? More theorizing? More exchanging of ideas, of stories, of life. More soon.

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Although the potential inherent in these conversations, questions, and musings does excite me, at the end of last semester, I was feeling increasingly uncertain about how much “more” I could take of anything. More grading. More reading. More writing. More emails. More feedback. More meetings. More classes. More COVID variants. More, more, more. Life had started to feel not like an email that ended excitedly with “more soon” but rather like a message one would find doom-scrolling that says “It’s all too much.”

Academia, in particular, had shifted from feeling like an asset that allowed me to pursue my passions and create real change, into something that had me nailed to the floor, physically incapable of moving past the mounds of ever-shifting institutional barricades. In short, at the end of last semester, I was one step away from quitting, which I can admit freely since I aired my frustrations with nearly every faculty member in the department, including A herself. I could not see past the horror that is finals week. In fact, I was in tears so many of those days that it is a wonder I stopped crying long enough to see at all.

Then, one night before break, in between the crying and the writing, I stopped everything to spend time with a dear friend of mine and her family. I went to spend time with her not to lament my problems or seek advice, but just to have a good time and celebrate the holiday before I went away for a while. It was while doing just that that I accidentally sprung my existential crisis onto my unsuspecting (but always willing to listen) friend. As I was doling out whipped cream onto the marshmallows floating in my freshly made cup of hot cocoa (an order chosen so that the whipped cream does not melt, duh), I casually said to her “No big deal, but marshmallows, whipped cream, and sprinkles?! This is the best night ever. This even makes me forget about the fact I’ve been considering dropping my Ph.D. program.” She looked at me with a slight chuckle and said, “This seems like a bigger conversation; let’s revisit this later, okay?”

And to her credit, we did revisit it later. We had a conversation on her couch as her family slept, relying solely on the light from the paused television show to illuminate our faces, both of which were half-covered in blankets so that only our tired eyes could see one another. Late at night on a workday with nothing to hide behind but our blankets, she told me the truth exactly as it was. I started by telling her about my thoughts and worries, particularly that “I know I am privileged, but-” and she cut me off right there. She looked me dead in the eyes and said “You are privileged. Start there.” That was the first thing she said that I will not forget. The second was this (and, if you read this C, forgive me for my paraphrasing):

“You can’t see the long game-- It is because you’re young and because you're in it, but you can’t see it. This is just five years-- and remember, we will be there cheering for you at the end. If you don’t feel perfectly comfortable or perfectly happy or like you fit in perfectly, that is ok. You can do that for five years. The only reason you should leave is if it steals your joy because you have a light in you and it is not worth it being taken away. Other than that, I think you should stay. Look at what you are gaining. Look at the long game.”
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I could write a poem and three essays on how much it meant to me that my friend told me I had joy inside me and someday I will, but today I want to focus on the beginning and the end; the long game. I am twenty-four years old. In five years, I will be twenty-nine years old and the five years I spend pursuing this degree will have taken one-sixth of my life. The last time I made a purposeful commitment to pursue education, it was for one year. The time before, it had been for four, which turned into five by accident.

Of course I can’t see the long game- I’ve never played one. I am terrified of the long game just thinking about it. However you phrase it, “more soon” or “the long game,” each signifies things to come and the future is full of a ton of scary, awful, life-altering things. Some good ones, too, but there are always both, and I am scared. I am scared to watch my friends graduate and leave. Happy for them, but scared. I am scared to watch my friends’ children grow up and encounter new challenges. Excited for them, but scared. I am scared to watch my family grow older. Hopeful for them, but scared. Five years is an awfully long time to be afraid.

But I have realized now, the time will pass anyway. Everything that is going to happen outside of the program will happen whether I stay or go. So, maybe my problem is not so much that I am dissatisfied with what I am experiencing now. Maybe it’s not that at all. Maybe, as an old therapist once told me, I am not afraid of what I have, but of what I have to lose. Because if I quit the program, I could stop worrying about getting kicked out… but what am I really running from, there? Perhaps instead of running away from time, the only inevitable thing in this world, what if instead, I run away from all the voices in my head telling me that I am going to get kicked out. Telling me I am too stupid to be here. Telling me that I am going to say something stupid and lose friends, mentors, and advisors. Telling me that I am going to make an irreversible mistake and lose my job.

Maybe I shouldn’t run away from this good thing in my life so that at least I am in control of what I lose. Maybe I need to embrace it instead. Hold it tightly from a place of privilege and look for the “more soon” on the horizon; treating it as inevitable and full of joy AND loss rather than just loss.

I am no expert. I know that. But I know it is a privilege to have something I’m so afraid to lose. Maybe the long game is worth playing. I hope I can muster up enough courage to find out.