I can't get started

So, as I've mentioned before, I'm a PhD student. Cut to montage of me, walking around generic university campus, in the Autumn, with fabulous Autumn outfit, carrying books to and fro the lecture hall.  The reality isn't quite the same.

Cut to montage of me, in my flat, wearing years-old jeans and worn t-shirt, staring at the screen blankly and beginning to panic. Cut to me, wondering what the hell is going on and who's in charge here? Surely someone must know what I'm doing? Surely this -this - isn't the process? Panicking about sounding like an idiot, worrying about my horrific lack of writing skills, being terrified by bibliography and the mountain of research that I just can't link up? I thought my everyday life would magically change. I thought that there would be some great secret I would learn; some wonderful and elegant serenity that would enter my life on acceptance to the doctoral programme. Nope.

I really, really love the premise of my PhD. I love it. I'll give a tiny hint; it involves me capitalising on my life-long love, scary stuff. That's all you're getting, by the way. But when you've spent the first year going one century previous to the one you really wanted to study, things start to get confusing. When you don't actually get to do what you thought you would, you get a bit disenchanted. When you have to deliver your work in a departmental review and you get torn to shreds, you begin to lose hope. You realise that you don't really have a bloody clue what you're doing or how you ended up at this point. You wonder when the email or letter will come that tells you that your efforts were appreciated, but this PhD business is obviously not for you - because it is hard, rigourous, arduous and quite often, boring.

I'm not anything like near enough to where I thought I'd be at this point. I've had to change the direction of my thesis and it still feels like I'm running uphill with my legs bound. There are a few reasons for this, of course.

I have to work part time or starve. I don't have unlimited funding, and time is running out for that. I work three days a week, leaving four for PhD work. Wonderful, right? And it is...it is in no way ideal, but it's not as bad as it could be. The problem is, I am usually wrecked after three days of heavy lifting, sticking a false smile on my face for 8 hours at a time and all the other tiny factors that add up to make work so tiring. Trying to get motivated to do some PhD work on those days is almost impossible. And those days are immovable from week to week. So every single week, I know exactly where I will be. It's hard to get time off and I can't afford it anyway, which leads to another problem.

Doing the same thing, day in, day out, whether for the PhD or work, can be wearing and soul destroying. There is very little variation. Both are demanding and knackering.  I don't have the funds to go anywhere or do anything special. No holidays. Big deal, really; holidays don't bother me so much. It's the gradual grinding down of my motivation and energy, which most people in Ireland are going through as well.

I am one of the luckiest  people living in Ireland today. I don't owe the bank anything more than my credit card balance, which is the smallest I could get. I don't have children that I can't afford to send to school, or college, or feed or clothe. I have not been made redundant and I don't have to work harder for less money and cope with cuts made by the government. My bills, and my needs, are small. It will be a struggle to get funding, that's a given. As I get older, it's harder and harder to keep going and balance about 20 balls in the air. All the frustrating and time-consuming stuff like house work, food shopping, bill paying and everything else, gets done by me.  But there's a kind of freedom in that I don't rely on anyone else to do what I have to do.  I like the feeling of independence and capability I get when I pay my rent, or pay off a bill, or take care of business. So what's the problem?

I'm worn out. I can't fake it till I make it, this week. There have been a few too many upheavals to my routine lately that I can't seem to get over. I had absolutely no money left after paying my rent and my bills this week. It's not the first time and it won't be the last. I don't care too much, once there's food in the fridge and the library is open.  But this time, it feels like failure on my part. Like  this is how it will always be; struggle and knock - back and struggle and knock-back, and I'm not sure any more if it's worth it.

I usually feel like this just before a renewed burst of energy. What goes up, must come down, and all that. But I'm sharing this because - well hey, that's what a blog is for, right? - I'm going to paraphrase a well-known saying. Be careful what you wish for. If you get it, you will get all the problems and difficulties that go with it too.  And you better get used to sucking up how tired you feel, or how bored, or how much you really might just want to run away as fast as your legs can carry you.

If you manage to do that, please tell me how.