...talk us down from the ledges...

(Amy Grant, That's What Love is For)

A girl's gotta have friends.

And this girl has the best ones.

Last week, in the middle of writing my research proposal for the secret Midwestern school application, I found a reference in a bibliography that I hadn't looked up. So I looked it up. And instead of seeing it as a piece of the puzzle, I saw it as the arrow that burst my research, that made my work invalid. Panicking, I picked up the phone and called Sally. Who, I had forgotten, had a house full of guests. She took a moment to assure me that no one was doing work on Third Culture Kids in libraries, that my work was important, and that this was just an application to graduate school, NOT a dissertation. She took five minutes away from her guests to talk me off my ledge.

All week, I have been screaming on Twitter, wanting to throw in the towel, and friends like Deb have been sending me reminders of what I want to do in the form of cupcakes.

Thursday morning, I sat my tush in my chair and filled in the online application. It took me all morning, including a trip to FedExKinkos because the watermarks on one of my transcripts made it impossible to compact it beyond 2000KB. The file needed to be under 500KB. Murphy was alive and well, but I had set aside the entire morning, so I beat him at his game.

Anyways, as I sit here, kind of like a couch potato, stunned that my year of striving is almost over, I want to say thanks. Because your encouragement is what got me through, you talked me off my ledges.

I'm leaving out a big plate of cupcakes.