1,000 days

View from Erice, Sicily

If I had stayed in my PhD program, I would still have 1,000 days left to go.

1,000 days of being subjected to honestly one of the strangest environments I’ve ever found myself in. One where, ironically, there was no freedom of thought, no ability to question the system - not even to challenge it, but just to clarify, that yes, these are the expectations that you are expecting. You would think I was working on classified, high-stakes space research the way we were being micromanaged.

When we first met together, my classmates and I, a list was rattled off to us of rules and expectations. I missed a lot of it to be honest - technical vocabulary I was unfamiliar with, terms I had never heard used in this context before. But the one saying I do remember with striking clarity is this: when others were trying to negotiate their own situations in light of this new information - but what about this? would I be allowed to do that? - finally, with exasparation, we were just simply told:

You signed a contract for the next three years. Until October 31st, 2026.

As if that was it. As if nothing else mattered. As if, so please stop complaining about it. As if this just became our first and only priority until that date passed. They didn’t want to hear anymore about our “little problems,” which to us are not little problems but the matter of organizing our lives. Of planning for our futures. Futures, by the way, that don’t end on October 31st, 2026. This PhD was supposed to be one part of my life, not all of it.

At this meeting, we were also told that sometime in this time period, we would also have to study abroad for nine months. Do an internship for another six months. And we couldn’t work on anything else even semi-professionally unless it was authorized by them. Them, who seem so open to creative pursuits. I heard the death tolls of my dreams of monetizing my YouTube channel. I wondered how I could even consider the possibility of having a baby when I was in a different country than my partner. I didn’t know this at the time, but not only did it mean I would have to leave the country for nine months, but during the months I was at home, I was not allowed to leave the CITY for more than a few days, again, without their authorization. Seriously, if they had laid out these “terms” ahead of time, I never would have bothered applying.

Would you?

So anyway, you can imagine that upon hearing that date, I immediately went to a countdown application to see how many days were left. Maybe one thousand fifty-something. The number of days does not matter but what does was the absolute feeling of dread that I had. I had hoped that the PhD could be a stepping stone, something that could be interesting and cool, and a job to be honest, that could buoy me until I got my other ideas on their feet. I thought I would be studying, that I could go easily back and forth between Italy and the United States without informing someone of my every move. Without worrying that they would arbitrarily “convene” my presence when I already was planning on being somewhere else. I couldn’t breathe. I almost can’t just reading this now.

From that moment, I think I knew it wasn’t going to work for me. It will probably come as a surprise to some people that I was even in this program to begin with. I hardly told anyone, and every time I did, I was reluctant to do so. Something inside me just felt like it wasn’t right. I tried to carry on, but, to save another story for another day, in the end it just became impossible.

And once I had tried my best, and felt confident that leaving was the best decision for me, do you know how I felt? I felt free. I felt like I could breathe again, like I could dream again, like I could hope again. I am excited again about my future, about the possibilities that for the past three months had been closed off in a box in the corner. To put aside all the potentialities that I hoped could happen in the next three years had sent me into a depressive spiral. I was dizzy from listening to them talk in circles, trying to say one thing and then another just to keep us under their thumbs. What was supposed to have been a stepping stone on my path had become a boulder dropped in my way. And as soon as I said I was leaving, that boulder went away. The path cleared. The tension in my shoulders and face dissolved. I packed my bags, came home, and woke up on my birthday next to my partner, more sure of having made the right decision than ever before in my life.

This was the new beginning I had been hoping for.

I wonder where I’ll be in 1,000 days, and I hope it’s fabulous. I’m going to give myself back the gift of my life, and make every day count.

love,

greer