Winter of Our Discontent

This is the dangerous time of year. The end of the holiday, the greyness that turns the world into a black and white photo, the dirty muck of the leftover snow on the side of the road, and the months stretching ahead before any relief. It taxes the anti-depressants to their very limit, let me tell you!

The burnout is particularly acute this year, or at least at this moment. Once the grades had been submitted and I learned to let the out-of-office autoreply take care of the protestations (two of which were downright rude and demanding), I began to feel much better and put all of that out of my mind for a week or two. I could breath easily, I could read, I could relax. Now comes the dread of the next semester, the feeling of suffocation and of fruitful time slipping away.

In fact, dread characterizes this time of year. This is a dreadful time of year. I dread the strain put on my antidepressants and I dread the coming semester.

In the past, I've found a good tactic for dealing with the dreadful season has been to do something -- anything -- that takes my mind off of the dread and that suppresses or counteracts the burnout. One year, a decade ago, I became involved in a book group, which led to involvement in a feminist group. Another year, I decided to focus on the quiet of my somewhat less than desirable geographic location (then I spent about two months being sick). Yet another year, I tried out for plays and received good parts. Then, of course, there was the year I took an acting class on Saturday mornings, which I followed with a day at the museums. Last year, I finished a book proposal and a draft of an article. The book proposal ultimately yielded a contract. The draft morphed into another draft that has now reached the revise and resubmit stage.

This year, what shall I do? I have so much that the dread has almost transformed into a sense of panic. Revise and resubmit, although having no deadline, beckons from one side. A book review calls for attention from another. Yet another two books are sit in the mailroom back at my apartment. Then, all of the funding opportunities rush at me in rapid succession from now until February, when I am also giving a paper that will essentially be an outline of 1 1/2 to 2 chapters. I can actually be a grown-up historian this semester!

My time, then, must be viciously guarded -- a vow I make every single semester and violate by the 6th week. That cannot happen this time. That, perhaps, should be my new thing to do in this dreadful season: viciously guard my time and, in the process, also follow Comrade Physioprof's suggestion and do the doctorly thing of viciously guarding my own psyche from the problems and pecking of the students.

The first step in doing will be to stop thinking of my research and writing as moonlighting. In a way, they are, since they are not part of my job description; but thinking that way means that I've rather given up the fight, that I sell myself short already. None of that!

Now, off to get busy and fight off the dread!