There is a lot going on right now, and I am really questioning my next few moves.
When I tore my Achilles tendon, I spent a week or so debating on whether or not to press pause on my studio in St. Louis. I weighed a lot of things and ultimately decided to close my studio. My remaining clients are being shot in different locations, it isn't like I cancelled on my clients. But the studio just didn't make sense any more. I knew Derek and I would be moving soon, anyway, and I very honestly hated that my studio wasn't accessible to everyone. Being third floor with no elevator? Terrible. Lots of things went in to my deciding to close up shop in STL. I loved my space, I loved the images I created with my clients, but I do not feel like I'm suffering without my physical studio. Plus, like...MOST importantly, I just couldn't manage getting up and down the stairs in my boot with my gear, and Derek couldn't be with me for every single shoot to manage my gear for me. And I needed time to heal.
Which.
I am getting better, the pain itself is limited to a much, much, MUCH smaller region of my foot instead of my entire leg. I injured myself in July, RIGHT after my birthday, and I am finally finally about to start PT for my foot. In 19 days.
It's relatively quiet for me, photography-wise, because I've had so much other stuff to do and I can't focus on getting more clients.
One of the things I've been doing is courting PhD programs. I am a chronic sufferer of FOMO, and as a result I never feel...settled in myself. Dan told me once that I wasn't quite still. He compared me to the time traveler in The Time Traveler's Wife, and said that he didn't think he could spend time waiting for me to arrive and be fixed in time. I'm paraphrasing, obviously, but I do remember him making this comparison in a fairly similar way, because I had never seen the Time Traveler's Wife and I had to watch it to understand what he meant. To be very clear, I do not think this was an exactly genuine critique of me as a person and how I as a person was not a good fit for Dan. I will continue to believe that he just didn't want to be with ME because I wasn't the right kind of person aesthetically, I wasn't the right kind of person on paper, and I don't think that Dan actually wanted a long term relationship. Which is all fine, I understand, and I've only ever been hurt by the lack of transparency. Well, that and it never feels good to know that the problem is you and your ugly face, body, and trash CV. Anyway, I've thought about this critique for the decade plus since Dan said it, and while I do not think he was being honest in that assessment of me for HIM, I do think he might have been on to something. My ADD/Autism for sure comes with an inability to stay committed and focused to something. A career for me has always seemed nice, but ultimately...like...my interests are legion, my talents are diverse, and I'm just supposed to pick ONE thing? One?? One and that isn't depressing as fuck? I for sure flit from thing to thing, and I take on new hobbies and interests and I am a person whose brain is essentially television static. To me, the television, I get it. I know what's going on. But to anybody else taking a peek at me, it's just noisy and upsetting and it needs to be changed or turned off. There was an element of truth to Dan's commentary on how I'm maybe never really present. I'm always off doing some such thing.
So in my pursuing of PhD programs, I've felt like...kind of bored. I have moments of excitement...like, make no mistake, the program at Denver that I'm (maybe) applying to is a fucking AMAZING program. So. Good. As tailored to my academic interests as any program...aside from the one in Seattle that I am not a good candidate for...can be. I think about accepting their invitation to be in the 2026 cohort and I'm like, YES! This will be AMAZING!!!! I have less excitement about Syracuse, and my choice for Syracuse would be more about doing the adult, responsible thing. I could for sure make myself something wonderful if I accepted their invitation to be in the 2026 cohort, and it would come with a lot of stable benefits that Denver just can't offer...but I am also occasionally caught up in excitement about Syracuse. But like...mostly I just feel like I am doing it because it's the next logical progression of my academic career, not necessarily because I feel passion about it.
I do not think I do feel passion about my PhD. And Derek's marketplace opening and seeing the options available to use has really opened my eyes to that.
Derek got the following options:
Washington State, Texas, Texas, Georgia, New York, North Carolina, Europe
That is the order Derek put in for. He put Washington State first, it's been my big want (other than Europe and Alaska) the entire time we've been together. He put the two Texas positions and the Georgia position as his next three choices, and we're hoping that if that's a slot he gets, we can parlay that into a compassionate reassignment and instead go to a queer friendly state, likely Colorado or New York. The other part of the reason for choosing those states is the PhD programs for me. I've known about the locations of the PhD programs for a couple of years...I've been really researching what programs I wanted to apply to...but when Derek's marketplace opened with Washington, I was so fast to say, "pick Washington." When Derek said, "uh, what about your PhD programs", my immediate...and I mean IMMEDIATE response...was, "I would rather spend four years in Washington". And I meant it.
Derek and I have talked more in depth about what it would mean if he gets Washington as far as my career goes. Derek very much wants me to pursue my PhD and become a professor, he believes in my abilities to see success in the things I have been saying academia needs, and I love that about him. It's lovely to feel like someone believes in you. But like...I don't think I actually want to do it. A part of me wants to do it...but most of me just...doesn't. I am an academic that is so not an academic, and I have no lasting desire to participate in a system that I have been researching how to divorce ourselves from because it's corrupt, it's broken, it's racist, it's sexist, it's queerphobic, it's ableist, and I can still advocate the change in academia that it needs without being entrenched in the same shit. I don't know how strong my mind is, man, who's to say I wouldn't just be like...no, actually, academia is fine! after a few years of being deep in its guts? Not me! Physician know thyself, and I do, and I think there is an aspect of myself that is a thoughtless, cowardly pushover. Best to not indulge her.
I told Derek I would still apply for the programs, but all my head is saying is, "ok, do it, but it's not even a top priority, if we're being honest". It would just be a thing to do. If Derek gets a TX or GA spot and we submit for compassionate reassignment...I kinda just wanna submit that CR for Washington. If we end up submitting for CR in CO or NY, I don't think it will be for my PhD. I think it will be to get our forever home (NY) or to spend a few extra years adventuring around (CO).
I don't know if I'm just listless right now, or if I just don't actually have ONE singular passion and everything I'm interested in is at the same volume so nothing seems louder than anything else, or if some secret third thing, but I have no fucking idea what I'm supposed to be doing.
Do you know how BORING a career sounds to me? Barf. I love being a photographer, but is that forever? Unlikely. I love being a caregiver...kind of...but is that forever? No. I love being involved in my community, and while that IS forever, I do not want to be so cynical as to turn that into a job. I love being at home, but that's also boring. There's so much to do and so much to experience and so many places to visit and how is ANYBODY expected to go to work when there are bugs and mountains and sunsets and people and rocks and food and crepuscular rays and birds?
I die at the end of everything. There is no scenario where that doesn't happen, and I keep saying to both myself and other people...I just don't see myself regretting not getting a PhD when I'm at death's door. How could I possibly give a single fuck about a PhD when there is so very much life to live and smells to smell and outside things to learn? Send me to Washington. Send me to Washington and let me hunt for agates on the beaches and travel to Oregon to see Oneonta Gorge and the ghost forest and Crater Lake and go see all of the National Parks and let me miss the snow while running around Multnomah Falls and learning new plant identification for foraging. What is a PhD against any of those things.
I initially went to college to try and make Dan see me as his speed, his kind of person. Worthy. I stayed in college to make myself believe it. I graduated with honors with both my BA and my MA. And I left academia completely disillusioned with its necessity, hating every inch of it, and feeling some type of way about the hows, whys, and means with which I excelled in it. I immediately considered a PhD as the next logical step, was told I was maybe a little too autistic for it, and I spent a year internalizing that and feeling ANOTHER type of way about it. I think somewhere I want to get my PhD just so I can finger wag and prove to naysayers I am NOT too autistic for academia. I think somewhere in me, I also just want the validation that I'm a competitive candidate, that I am worthy of a bankrupt institution that I hate (don't ask me why this is a factor. I was brought up to think degrees were the pinnacle of achievement)...and I might even apply JUST to get the acceptance letters...which I feel fairly good about. I've talked with each of the directors dozens of times, I've spoken with faculty, I've found mentors to recommend me, I've gotten my letters of rec, I have my fucking statements of purpose written. My applications are essentially done...but like. I'm reluctant to pull the lever on submitting them. And it's the ultimate tell.
Drea in her mid twenties would be shocked by Drea in her forties. Not even to make a milquetoast huckster love you, I can hear her saying? Not fuckin' even. I can do it. There is interest in my field of research, I've been given stipends and commendations for my commitment to my field. I've accomplished a lot. And I honestly care less about that than I do sitting in my garden and feeling the fall breeze while my chickens run around being terrors to the dirt.
I didn't know if I had settled on not applying. I knew I was close. Derek was upset when I mentioned it the other day, and took it as a lack of desire on my part to actually help the queer community in the ways I want to, and he chastised me for that. He's wrong and silly for that, of course, but I felt a momentary urge to go through with my PhD for the same reasons I enrolled in school in the first place: what if Derek no longer thought I was worthy of anything? Do I need to prove myself academically for a man until I'm fucking dead, and can I ever catch a god damn break?
I just hate academia. What a fucking slog. So I think that settles it for me. I do not think I'm going to get my PhD. If this is a crisis of confidence, and I end up going for My PhD after all, I will be surprised, but not that surprised. I am flighty. Dan clocked it almost twenty years ago. Maybe flighty is the wrong word. I'm too unserious about participating in society and too serious about the world to feel like I need a PhD to be good. My interests are too varied and my time is too fucking short to waste it.
Bring me the mountains. Bring me the sea. Bring me a garden. I'll find them if you can't.
