Personal Best

Sometimes good news is hard to hear.

I sent the dissertation draft to my adviser a couple of weeks ago. After a few days, he wrote back with several pages of feedback attached to an email that said "Please note that you have my general approval for the project" among others things. I focused on the other things and completely missed the implications of that comment. My beloved M. picked up on it ... "You're getting approved!" she crowed. As in, getting done. As in, I might finish and graduate this May, if the committee also approves the work.

I could barely hear what she was saying. I am Very Busy keeping my head in the sand so I don't count ostrich eggs before they hatch.

But a conversation a week or so later confirmed that that was what my adviser had meant. And, as I continued revising, using his feedback, that of the friends I asked for help, and my own sense of unfinished business, a small glow began to infuse the work, a sense that among the critiques there was affirmation. This is giving me some much needed energy here, late in the game, even though I struggle some to let myself feel it.

I was brought up with that curious white girl's mix of perfectionism and invisibility. Anything short of perfection was not really good enough, but seeking -- or even enjoying -- recognition for accomplishment was just not done. It's a potent combination for keeping women insecure and quiet. And it's a tired old story ... one I'd like to rise above. (Quietly, of course.)

Frankly, I was surprised by my adviser's approval. It felt sudden, premature ... how can he approve something I know is SO not done? But as I kept writing and revising, the sense grew in me that I was not so much scrambling for a deadline as making a good thing better.

I don't think it will ever feel done. My main fear before beginning to write in earnest was that I would not be able to do justice to the idea of an anti-racist dissertation. The concept I held in my head -- which somehow felt like both gift of and mission from God -- was bigger and more wonderful than I felt able to deliver. And now, here at the end, I still feel that sense of inadequacy. But, it's getting close to good enough.

No, it doesn't measure up to the vision I had; there are still loose ends, still things to figure out. But "good enough" is one of the lessons I've learned, inspired by one of the first books of theology I ever read, Bonnie Miller-McLemore's Also a Mother: Work and Family as Theological Dilemma. I actually picked it up back when I was working at Price Waterhouse in their management consulting practice, and trying to deal with the early years of motherhood. It was the work and family part that drew me to the book. Miller-McLemore makes the point that when you choose to -- or have to -- both work and be a mother, one of the lessons you have to learn is that nothing is ever as good as you want it to be ... but it can be good enough, if you let it be. And letting "it" be good enough can help keep you almost sane.

This approval is not the only surprise I've had of late. When I transitioned from the 9-minute run segments to the 14-minute segments, it was surprisingly easy. So easy that the next week I moved on to the 19 minute run segments. Yesterday I ran a personal best of six miles in 65 minutes. The 65 minutes included a five minute walking warm-up, a three minute walking cool-down, and three one-minute walks interspersed among the 19 minute running segments. So, my "don't brag" side says, "Well, you didn't really run six miles. You had three little walking breaks in there." But my recovering-from-perfectionism side says, "Yeah, but the running part had to be sub-ten-minute-miles to get six miles in 65 minutes that included 11 minutes of walking!"

The inside of my head is a funny place.

That six mile run felt good. I was hauling ass on the last couple of miles. My ankle only bothered me a little. So, my next run will be using the last Podrunner Interval segment: a solid 50 minute run, no walking. We'll see how it goes.

There's that self-doubt again. Or is it perfectionism ... or are they the same thing?

I think something healthier is driving these late-stage writings and revisions ... love.

I will send out the dissertation to the whole committee next week, including my external reader, Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz, who is a brilliant theologian and a hero to me (and I'm sure many other women). My work is inspired and informed by hers, and it is in some small way a reply to her calls for justice. And when I get her feedback and that of my other committee members, I hope it is in line with my advisor's: this is good enough, we'll approve it, and here's where it can use more work.

And I will keep working ... for love. For love of those who inspired the work. For love of those who taught me. For love of those who learned with me the lessons this work is based on. For love of justice, and the hope my work might make some difference for someone somewhere in the pursuit of justice. For love of the ideas and the questions at the heart of this dissertation, which I am not remotely tired of. For love of God.

And on a certain day, perhaps in the next month or two, the dissertation will be finished. It will not be perfect; it will not even be done. But it will be my personal best, on that day: what I could do, in the time available, with what I knew and what I could wring into words. There will be no regrets on that day, because I will know I did the best I could do.