He's Met the Dark Side

It’s enough to make grown men weep.

I don’t have a PhD, or any doctoral degree. I’ve never ventured on that journey. But I have a kid who is aalllmmosst there. He’s voluntarily locked himself in a mental dungeon, buried in God-knows-what stats and studies, engaging in what can only be termed as daily exercises in self-torture, stretched nearly to his emotional breaking point, for the past few years. The pain has been particularly acute since about February. And now, his dissertation has come due.

I have a group of children whose accomplishments, collectively and individually, are enough to make any mother proud. But it’s time to single out this particular child for undertaking and successfully completing the academic exercise where, as one of my own professors once put it, “you meet the dark side.”

I’ve told my son this, several times in the past few weeks. You’re going through the dark side. You’re deprived of sleep and all social contact with your family and friends - by necessity. Every minute becomes a unit of productivity bringing you closer to a goal you once thought unattainable. But it has taken everything you have in you.

All your hopes and dreams, your ambitions since perhaps childhood, you’ve slaved over and worked toward and the anxiety of ‘what if I’m not good enough?’ is a constant nagging presence. You’re at the point you want to give up, the process will never end, it isn’t worth it and you CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!

That’s where he is. This child, uniquely conscientious, perseverent and possessing a high sense of right and wrong, has reached his limits. But it’s almost over.

Tomorrow is the big day - the turn-in day; the deadline; the pay-the-piper day. And yet, the torture continues up until the very last minute. As he just this moment texted me ‘I’m completely exhausted. I can’t seem to get enough sleep. I’m so tired I can barely function.’ This, after a simple enquiry - how are you today?

But it ends. He will successfully defend his dissertation before his committee, and we will attend his graduation ceremony. And perhaps sweetest of all, the payoff comes and stays with him the rest of his life - the right to call himself and be called, ‘doctor.’

Honey, we are so proud of you. I think I will cry.