Such a long journey

First: Full credit to Rohinton Mistry for my borrowed title for this post.

I started this blog as a way to ruminate about the trials and celebrations of working through my PhD dissertation. It seems, at great long last, that journey is done. Well, I'm finished the PhD, but I have a feeling the journey will continue. I'm not sure where it will take me or how I will get there. I'm also not sure yet what that means for this blog. Maybe it's time to let it close, or maybe it will renew itself in some altered form. I'm not sure. My first task is to rest, celebrate, and recuperate. Then I'll figure out the rest, both for this blog and the next leg of the journey.

When I opened my files to create this post, I was struck by how much of the last few posts, and even some of the earlier ones, actually made it into my dissertation in some form. Some of these posts triggered ideas. Others were building blocks of major ideas that formed the basis of a chapter. Either way, evidence that this was a good thing for me to do.

I've learned a lot about food these last years. Mostly, though, I've learned how important it is to trust the process. Turns out it really was about the journey, and these writings were an important part of that. I've been taking immense cathartic pleasure in shredding papers and cleaning out files that I no longer need. I'm not quite ready to shut down this space, so for now, I will let it rest.