Unattainment. We’ve always known it. Always wrestling with it. Always close to it. Even when we were writing our dissertations. When we sit in our offices in the summer, trying to work.
Inachievement. That we know only in our idiocy. That we experience only in our stupidity. By what we’ve missed. What we’ve failed to achieve. By the rejection emails we received. By the contracts that were not renewed. By our general fuckedupness. By our usual fucking up.
No one ever thought we were brilliant. No one ever took us for prodigies. Nothing very much was expected of us. We were here today gone tomorrows. Vanishers. Ephemera. Always on the brink of disappearance. Mayflies.
No one even thought we’d complete our PhDs. Would ever finish out dissertations. They thought we’d drop out. We thought we’d drop out. Or fail. Or be referred.
And did we ever expect full time academic jobs? Of course not. Did we ever expect a career? No. Did we ever think things would move forward for us? Of course not. We didn’t believe in ourselves – let alone anyone else.
Work in Progress 