Fair warning: this is going to all be whining about stuff in my personal life that no one else will care about. If you don’t like that sort of thing, don’t bother with this thread.
I’m having one of those weeks where the hits just don’t stop coming. Every time I think I’ve found my limit, something else whacks me a few more feet down.
Firstly, in 25 hours, I will be standing in front of my entire graduate program and giving a presentation on everything I’ve done in the past year, what I’ve discovered, and where I hope to go next with it all. Fine, no big deal. Except that this mandatory review of my life has forced me bluntly to face the fact that I have accomplished next to nothing this last year. Just about everything I’ve done in the lab has failed, and I’ve barely budged past the point I was at a year ago, last time I did this presentation. I’m stressed out about this presentation, about the fact that I’m making no progress, about the fact that we’re gleefully freefalling into debt with no end in sight, about the fact that I’m older than everyone else in the program by a long shot, and about the fact that there’s no guarantee that this time in grad school will be worth it in the end. All that was keeping me up at night to begin with, even before everything else.
Secondly, there’s a family we’re friendly with. My wife and I have been friends with the parents, and my teenage stepson has been friends with their teenage boys. We’ve known each other for a few years now, and we’ve occasionally gotten together for cookouts or whatnot. Well, word got back to us recently about a conversation this other family had about us, and it wasn’t nice at all. Some very very hurtful things were reportedly said about us behind our backs. We’re well aware of the dangers of listening to thirdhand gossip, and we’ve started to talk it out with them, yadda yadda. The details don’t matter. The point is, there are some seriously hurt feelings in my house, and even though we’re working to get over them, they’re there, and not fun.
Then, my wife’s head developed a couple of huge blisters out of absolutely nowhere, which began to ooze copious amounts of fluid. No idea what caused it. She went to the doctor’s office. The nurse looked at it, said she had no idea what it was, and ended up calling in a doctor. Who called in another doctor. Who called in another. None of them had a clue what it was. As Jerry Seinfeld once said, “You never want to be the patient that causes your doctor to say, ‘Hang on! I’ve got to get some more people in here! They won’t believe this!’” In the end, they essentially shrugged, gave her some prescription cream, and told her to call back if it didn’t get better in a few days. It is, luckily, looking much better now. One tiny spot of light.
Oh, and I had a huge blowup at my stepson in the car the other day. I had been building frustration with him for several weeks, and it all came out at once. Again, the details don’t matter. He was absolutely in the wrong, and had no defense, but I know I handled it badly, and somehow all the guilt seems to end up on my shoulders.
And then, just to fucking top things off, last night my wife saw some blood when she wiped after going to the bathroom. Normally not a big deal for a woman - quite normal, in fact. Except that she was six weeks pregnant. The miscarriage completed this morning. It’s our third.
So here I am. I got hardly any sleep last night, because I couldn’t fall asleep due to stress and worry, and woke up an hour earlier than I needed to this morning with one of my patented skull-splitting headaches, for which the only treatment is Excedrin. I spent the morning at home watching the baby while my wife went through what she had to go through. Now my head is still pounding from the headache, I’m dizzy from the Excedrin caffeine and lack of sleep, I’m exhausted, and I’m staring at this half-finished presentation I have to give tomorrow and I just don’t give a crap about it. I don’t even care about this research any more - how am I supposed to convince everyone else it’s interesting? I know - welcome to grad school.
I just want this week to end. And it’s only Wednesday.
I don’t really know why I’m posting this. I’m not really looking for sympathy. I’m definitely not looking for advice. I just need to unload, and apart from my wife, who’s having a rougher time right now than I am, there’s no one nearby on whom I can. Family is far away, and apart from my immediate family, I seem to be surrounded by people who generally don’t really care if I live or die. We don’t have a lot of friends here, and some of those we do have seem to think we’re horrible parents. Bah, enough. Anyway. There. It’s off my chest. I’m sure I’ll be feeling much better tomorrow. I better go finish this presentation, because I just can’t stop wondering about the details of how this fruit fly gene is regulated!!