Mastered that Ish

I did it. I finished my thesis. (Golf claps, please.)

And because I am a total crazyperson, even though I turned it in last Thursday, I decided I had to sit down and read the whole thing today just in case it's horrific, since tomorrow is the official deadline.

Guess what? It's not horrific.

Since I decided to change my thesis from straight non-fiction to memoir, I've battled some nearly-crippling doubts. I worried I was being self-indulgent (I'm sure I still am). I felt stupid for writing my graduate thesis about boys. Especially when one of the relationships I wrote about ended just 12 weeks ago. Was the material too fresh? Was I just bitter? Was I making something out of nothing? Would I be the only person on earth who would "get" my book?

One of my teachers, Janet Fitch, wrote a blog post earlier in the year, which I printed out and stuck on my fridge. She says she realized: "I didn't need anyone's seal of approval to do what I wanted to do...if you let yourself do what you want in life, you'll always be a success. Even if nobody else likes it or gets it or wants it."

While I can't be 100% sure if my thesis will make it to a Barnes and Noble near you, I do know that the process of writing memoir and embarking on my three years of grad school, from New York City and back, changed the direction of my life significantly.

This may seem random, and maybe only makes sense to me, but I learned something in the process of analyzing my relationships with men. I've had three boyfriends (if you can call them that) around whom I was completely incapacitated. By this, I mean I was totally not myself, always worrying over everything I said and did around them. Because I wasn't that way around other guys I'd dated, I thought that my behavior meant I must have really, really liked those three, and the constant nerves were merely a response to how badly I wanted the relationships to work. However, I realized that those three had something else in common: their feelings toward me were highly ambiguous. I never knew where I stood, and was too nervous to ask, creating a cycle of highs and lows. When it seemed like one of the guys loved me, I was elated. When it seemed like maybe he didn't, I was devastated.

Here's the realization: I didn't really, really like them. I mistook fear and misplaced infatuation for fall-on-my-face love. Idiot!

Well, now I know.

And, armed with this knowledge, which I feel a little dumb about because it was so freakin' obvious, (and a Master's, what whaaaaat), I'm looking forward to going through life a little differently. I'm, dare it say it, optimistic.