Allison Living.

@lifeofmoderation tagged me to selfie but I look like a zombie right now, so instead here’s a selfie of me from 2 days ago in a new dress that I am SO excited to wear when we go to Australia in just two weeks (!!). We’re going to Sydney and Cairnes for 3 weeks and I am soo excited to have some true vacation time, especially because life since defending my PhD in December and starting my new job in January has unfortunately just been everything on overdrive all the time. Although thankfully I’ve proven myself and gotten some really great feedback, and things are finally starting to calm down.

And then... we come home and get married two weeks later!! I started a countdown on my phone. The picture is from the day J defended his PhD over three years ago, which was the day I realized how much I loved him because I’ve never been so proud of another human being in my entire life.

This picture represents joy to me. Reading a book on the balcony in the hot sun purely for the fun of it.

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That picture was me yesterday morning after waking up slow and sipping coffee in the tiny kitchen of our condo. This morning, in quite a strong contrast, I woke up feeling slightly irritated, and tried to do the same things but felt restless. My mind led me to a familiar place where I ask myself the big question: “am I happy?”

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When I’m coming from that head space, the answer is never fruitful. For a lot of my life happiness has felt like a large looming and somewhat unattainable thing. It’s hard to feel like you’re happy when you could always be happiER with a new job, place to live, etc. I remember when I was younger I felt happy about my life because there were still so many exciting unknown things coming, like how you can feel happier when you’re anticipating something than when you actually experience the thing. Over the years, I started to feel like the big exciting parts of life were all becoming smaller and smaller with every choice that I made, starting with choosing a college to go to, choosing a career, choosing a partner, choosing a place to live etc. — like each choice shuts a door on all of the exciting lives you could live.

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This morning, in a moment of clarity admidst all the familiar grooves in my mind, I realized that if happiness is this big elusive thing, maybe it’d be better to just focus on joy. This word is starting to mean so much to me (it’s now in my tumblr name), as it feels much less scary and much more in the present moment.

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Growing up, my mom used to tell all three of her children repeatedly that she didn’t care what job we had, and the most important thing in life is just to be happy. It appears I took this a little too literally, and now I’m amending my own version. It’s most important that I have days where I experience joy even for small amounts of time. If I have full days of darkness, or just mornings of irritation, then maybe I can try asking myself something like “what would bring me joy today?” instead of the shit storm of thoughts that abounds from “am I happy?”

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I’m flying to meet my fiancé at the beach for the long weekend. I feel a sense of peace and gratitude, despite the screaming children and desperate parents singing baby shark for the 100th time. This is a surprising feeling because I have a big stressful thing due at work when I get back next week, and I wanted to finish waaay more of it before enjoying the holiday weekend. I really struggle with feeling like I don’t “deserve” time off work if I haven’t achieved some goal, and I’m concerned I’ll never really overcome being ruled by my work.

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But tonight I’m looking around at all of the humans around me and acknowledging that every single one of us are buzzing with our own internal endless stream of thoughts and worries, and for some larger reason that makes me want to let some of mine go.

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Sometimes it hits me that it’s pretty weird that I studied the brain for 5 years during my PhD, and yet in the real world I so rarely think about it. Specifically, I know all about how our cochlea encodes the frequencies of sound waves and turns them into electrical energy that propagates through millions of neurons to comprehend just a single word. And it absolutely fascinates me to my core and drives me in my research to help any and all individuals who struggle to communicate. But when I’m talking to people, I feel so far removed from that knowledge. I don’t picture the other person’s brainstem sending impulses to their auditory cortex. I still feel like just another human sharing an interaction with someone else. There is a disconnect between my knowledge of science and the way I actually perceive and experience the world. I wonder if physicists feel the same way; they may know every detail about how all matter will behave, but that doesn’t alter their experience when they’re watching something they just dropped.

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You said to me, “Meeting you and going on our first date here changed my life forever, and this place is about to change my life again” and then you got down on one knee and asked me to marry you.

It was freezing cold outside, but I looked at you and then looked around at the trees surrounding the bench where we ate ice cream and had our first kiss, a place that is so meaningful for us, and my heart felt more warmth in that moment than I have ever known. 

I have grown to be the most myself through being with you these past four years. Loving you has taught me about life and happiness and meaning and loss and persistence all at once, and I don’t ever want to stop learning with you. 

I said yes, and then I asked if I was supposed to say yes or I do (because I was confused and ecstatic and who knows), and then you took me to my favorite restaurant, and our waiter overheard me telling my parents on the phone and brought us free champagne and appetizers, and the love we have been surrounded by over the past few days has been astounding.

You are my person. I am yours.

Pictures of the past week:

Making myself chai lattes as a treat in the cold of January

Teaching myself physics on the weekends in order to understand the research in my new job

Exploring new bars in our city with my love

Still wearing wine-colored everything every chance I get

The birthday card I sent to my grandma for her 80th birthday

This Saturday morning:

Woke up bright-eyed at 7:45 ready to enjoy the day. My boyfriend and I have both been working 12 hour days the past two weeks and this weekend I am so ready to slow down and enjoy each other’s company

Still feeling the warmth of going out to dinner with my PhD mentor and his wife last night at a cozy Italian restaurant. His wife told me privately that I was always her favorite and the lab isn’t the same without me, and it was so unexpected I could have cried right there. Some day I will have a conversation with him about the ways he lifted and changed my life. But, that’s for another day when it’s the two of us.

I somehow ended up watching youtube videos of Sarah McLachlan songs (who even knows how you end up where you do on the internet??) and feeling extensive nostalgia for being a kid in the 90s. All it took was two lines: “I will remember you, don’t let your life pass you by” and I melted into that time.

Then, I scrolled down and read a youtube comment about a man admitting he is 30 years old and he is so lonely during the day that he cries himself to sleep listening to her songs. The pain of the human condition fled me with emotion and it was so immediate that I didn’t know what to do. How is it fair or just or even acceptable that I can wake up in bliss on a Saturday morning while others are struggling to get out of bed? Especially when I have experienced those periods of darkness in my own life, and I remember the pain so vividly -- how can I be so selfish and ignore so many people suffering in silence around me? How can I do more? When my days are so busy and my job is often all-consuming, I don’t know. But this is a heavy feeling. More thoughts to come.

I don’t know if this will stick. But life is moving too fast lately and Tumblr used to be a way for me to slow down and reflect, so I’m trying again. And I like the idea of journaling, recording moments and seasons of life, and in true millennial form I’m drawn to an electronic public version... so here we go.

A few of the biggest updates since I was last on here in 2016:

After an incredibly taxing and anxiety-ridden final two years of graduate school, I completed my Ph.D. in December of 2018. I had dreamed of getting my Ph.D. since I was a little girl so this was a surreal and absolutely incredible experience. I was surrounded by all of the people who had supported me the most during this time, including my favorite colleagues and peers and professors, my boyfriend who has been by my side and my biggest cheerleader for almost the entire 5 year process, and my family. I gave my public speech, then my committee convened and asked me questions for only about 20 minutes (usually the committee grills you for ~an hour) and then announced me as Dr to the crowd waiting outside. I received the highest score, and then my committee had zero edits for me to make on my ~200 page dissertation document so I was able to relax for a few weeks with my family before starting my new job. I say all of this not to brag to anyone, but more for myself to remember and appreciate this huge accomplishment. It can be so difficult in academia to actually appreciate what you’ve done before moving on to the next paper, grant, or project etc. and this was a really big thing that I worked incredibly hard for.

I accepted my dream job in August 2018 while finishing my Ph.D. and just started two weeks ago. It is everything I thought it would be and more. I am learning so much and my new mentor is amazing and I’m coming to realize this is true happiness for me, to get to challenge myself to learn something new, something difficult, and thrive. I’m learning a ton of physics and math and coding, things I never thought I could do and these people actually hired me to do it. Just wow.

My boyfriend and I have grown so much closer these past few years. I have so much more I could write on this some day because things were not always easy  and my anxious mind tried to sabotage quite a bit. But I fought through my mind because I knew I wouldn’t find another man better for me. And we looked at rings two weeks ago (!!!!). 

Oh right and I changed my username. I feel like now that I’m finally out of grad school I’d like to come out of that crazy time and embrace the joy that is part of my daily life -- not find joy, not create it, but recognize and embrace what is already here. 

Life, lately.

- I finally figured out I could add an egg to my burger and it was life-changing.

- Trying to run 3+ times a week. Currently I only like doing 2 miles at a time, it’s quick and easy and makes it hard to turn down a run when I’ll be back home in less than 20 minutes. For some reason I haven’t been able to lift weights consistently anymore; I used to love it so much and I don’t know what happened. But I’ll never lose running.

- I wore this dress out for drinks this weekend. Obsessed with wearing anything and everything wine-colored lately.

- Selfies that force you to smile at the end of a long work day can be good for the soul.

Lately I’ve found myself dreaming about what it would like to somehow force myself to become a morning person.

If I woke up two hours earlier, would it give me the time and space to feel like I’m more in control of my day? Instead of the other way around - where I wake up and try to sleep in for as long as possible, and already feel like I’m behind and trying to catch up to a day that started without me.

Would I make coffee and fry eggs for breakfast and sit in the quiet? Would I walk over to the window and watch the sunrise and wonder how many others like me were watching at that exact moment?

Could I actually make myself tie up my laces and go for a run, so that no matter what else I do for the rest of the day it feels like I already accomplished something great, something I love to do, something just for me?