Discovering Voices, Discovering Selves

“So what is it like to write a dissertation?”

I suppose this question had always been lurking in my head, and I know from time to time I pondered getting to the other side of 120 pages, only the first half, especially at the time when the project was merely an idea discussed over lunch in a Middle Eastern restaurant in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill. David had encouraged me to pursue the LGBT path because it had rarely been walked before. I questioned whether or not I wanted to be the “gay” researcher and how that might affect my future opportunities. We concluded together that I would be unlikely to want to work anywhere that wouldn’t welcome this part of me, that wouldn’t allow me to explore the answers to questions I so obviously wanted to research.

120 pages handed in, and then a sense of blank, grey, quiet, emptiness.

“It’s like climbing a mountain”  – this was a metaphor one of my fellow graduate students used to refer to the process of creating a dissertation.

Was it? Well, it certainly was challenging, and at times overwhelming, but like all great challenges I believe this mountain climbing was more mental/emotional than anything else. I want to minimize the difficulty because actually it wasn’t truly difficult. I didn’t rescue any endangered animals, didn’t save any lives by finding cures, didn’t feed the hungry or help the homeless, and didn’t run any triathlons. There was nothing truly hard about this. Stressful? Yes. Did I procrastinate and did that procrastination cause more stress? Yes. Did I ever doubt myself? Absolutely. But was it really something difficult? I don’t think difficult is an accurate word…one word couldn’t possibly describe this journey…so far.

I’ll explain further. I spent approximately $2,000 US on over 60 books purchased for the express purpose of research for the dissertation. I downloaded (over a 2 year period) almost 100 journal articles, was referred to another 50 or so by colleagues, and consulted approximately 25 websites. I read about 10 theses and dissertations and spoke to about 50 people in the process of developing my ideas. I recycled at least 5 papers I had written over the last 3 years, surprised to find that they fit so well into the current research. Maybe I shouldn’t really be surprised. Maybe they were the stepping stones that led me here.

“What is it like to write a dissertation?”

The most challenging aspect is knowing when to stop. No, the most challenging aspect is believing that what I’ve created is good. Well, actually, even more challenging is believing that what I’ve created is worthwhile. This is where my participants come in.

I have collected 10 stories from men and women brave and kind enough to share their experiences and words with me. They have definitely helped me during those times when my head spun like a dervish, exhausted from looking in so many places. You see, creating the beginning of a research project – and I should say that there were great expectations for this project – is like a scavenger hunt. Every time I found a clue, excited with the joy of discovery, I realized that it ultimately was only one among many, and that there were many more left to find. Once clues were found, some sense had to be made of them.

You see, creating the beginning of a research project is like sculpting a figure from stone or wood – chip away, scrape, polish. It’s like building an elaborate dwelling. Foundations, walls, floors, ceilings. Sometimes they collapse. Sometimes the rooms need to be bigger and others need to be removed altogether. It is a process that can only happen with a great amount of time. The majority of work needed was not the building but the thinking, the processing, the mulling, the a-ha moments. I joke that I wrote more in my mind than I did on paper.

And back to the participants. I dreamed of them for months, before ever meeting them, before actually making contact. I wondered who would come forward to tell their stories. At first I wondered how their stories would prove or disprove my points. Now I am content to let their stories stand as monuments to their own journeys. Instead of looking for confirmation in their words, their words are merely enough. They are evocative, sad, touching, funny, angry, confusing, poetic and tell more, so much more than ticked boxes on a questionnaire. They move me, they take me on journeys, they begin and they end but they still live on in my mind.

“What is it like to write a dissertation?”

It’s a journey of self-discipline and drive. I repeat that it was not difficult – a dissertation is writing, research, re-writing, more research, reading, talking, thinking, forgetting, deleting, re-writing…these are not difficult. No, the real difficulty is the battle with and within myself. Believing that I can do this and that someone would actually want to read this and that it could actually be a useful endeavor. That’s difficult. Finding time and space to think and write when the sun shines onto green grass and the fan blows cool air onto linen sheets and the world beckons with diversion. That’s difficult. Learning to be fair to myself – reading and re-reading and re-reading yet again, knowing that the last ten pages of writing have to go. That’s difficult. It’s the mental and emotional aspect of creating a large project that involves more than myself, that has people waiting to see “how I do” and yet so many who don’t ask at all, who take no interest other than to inquire “are you done yet?” When some of those closest to me don’t show any desire to glimpse at my journey – that’s difficult. I tell myself, “I don’t do it for them, I do it for me.”

And yet, there have been strong supporters, serendipitous moments, synchronicity and supreme joy. Angels have flown to my aid, sometimes strange, sometimes familiar. Devils have tempted me off my path.

“What is it like to write a dissertation?”

It is to make something from nothing that directly represents me. The greatest challenge is to find a way to love this metaphor for myself, this project I’ve created. The greatest challenge is to love myself, and that’s what it is like to write a dissertation….although the word “write” doesn’t begin to encompass all that I have passed through, gained, and lost.  To create requires a little bit of love and yes, a little bit of hate. But if I hadn’t loved myself, hadn’t really believed in myself, then I never could have come this far. And as far as I have come I feel as though I am truly only at the beginning. I read over my pages now and see so much room for expansion. It could be better. It could be stronger. It could be longer, deeper, more sophisticated, more profound…couldn’t we all?

“What does a dissertation require?

In a word – love.