Community of the unique

One of my dearest friends introduced me to Glennon Doyle by sending me a copy of Untamed. The prologue had me a blubbering mess: I was that goddamn cheetah (you should read it).

I started following Doyle and her partner in their explorations of what it means to “do hard things,” and I began to recognize how much power there is in naming the difficult things we do. I have lived my 40 years surrounded by people who shoulder unimaginable weight and who are just expected to keep on keepin’ on without weakness. I am one of those people.

I am solo/single parent PhD student. I identify as biracial and queer. I recently moved to a town far from family and familiarity. I have set out to do hard things, as I have many times in my life. I am both extraordinary and rather common in my ability to survive, adapt, and thrive in my ambition. I am unique in how I thrive onward, but I am not alone in struggle.

I am in community, even if unconnected, with you who are grinding it out every day in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges.

There is collective and uplifting power in naming our journey. And that is what I mean to do here. I am not the only solo/single parent trying to escape the ceiling that was handed to me. I am not the only first-gen student trying to get a PhD without having any institutional or social or economic capital. I am not the only person doing what I’m doing. Yet, my experience doesn’t really exist anywhere in the storytelling of PhD life.

I mean to share my truth. The hard things I can do. Am doing. That maybe you are doing, too. Or want to. I mean to share the messiness and beauty of carving a new path so that neither I nor you are alone in that adventure.