When I'm done

I'm now realizing this title is a little bit morbid.

Seriously, though, I've got my eye on March 10. That's one month from today. One month from today, I should be done. I may not be completely done, but March 10 is the day I've designated for completing the bulk of writing for the book I'm working on for my university.

I haven't felt this way since May 2004 - the last month of my senior year of college. I had a big paper due for my communications ethics class (the paper that made me realize I didn't want to go into public relations, which until that point I thought I did), an internship portfolio to complete, a media criticism analysis to write up, and I'm sure something was due for the principles of management class I was trudging through (a requirement for my leadership studies minor). Every time I've looked back on that time in my life, it's been with fondness. Of course it has. It was the close of an era, a bittersweet chapter filled with friends I've not seen in ages since, and a time that influenced the decisions I would later make and the way I view the world. What I've gained from that time in my life is still revealing itself.

But being back in the thick of what feels like homework - because that's what it is, working at home each evening - the other memories, the ones filled with impending doom and panic and overwhelming desires to procrastinate, and the ease with which I become short with loved ones, are suddenly made new again. I love this project, and I know it's worth it in the end, but right now it is hard.

To help me through this time, I've developed reward systems. One of them is how I start and end each weekday. Getting up on weekdays has never been easy for me, but now my alarm goes off at 6:15 a.m. from across the room and I get up, turn it off, resist hitting "snooze," head straight to the shower, and know that once I'm ready for the day, I'll have saved a sweet thirty minutes after breakfast to just read (often with the cat on my lap). At the end of the day, if I've written what I set out to write that day, I am allowed to take a bath, and/or have a nice cup of tea and something sweet.

The most motivating reward system, however, is what I get if I finish by March 10. My list is growing and growing, and, maybe this is sad to admit, it looks a lot like the life I lived before I took this project on. It includes a celebration dinner, a massage, having friends over for drinks, sewing projects, knitting projects, baking projects, going out to a show on a weeknight (!), planning European and domestic vacations, learning Portuguese, and, of course, maintaining this blog.

I can't wait.

See you then.