until you know my struggle...

I don’t know, but some days you wake up and feel a certain kind of way. It’s nothing and it’s everything. You can’t name it and you don’t have words to describe it. If someone were to ask you what it is, you might say it’s the blues. Maybe…but, that’s not all it is.

The other day as I was assisting a colleague, the newly minted PhD John Boopalan, print his 331 page dissertation on the required Southworth, linen-cotton, $38.00 a ream paper, he asked, “Have you seen your dissertation?” Immediately, I responded, “No, I don’t care to see it.” But, it got me to thinking about all the labor I put into writing hundreds of pages that would ultimately become my 236 page dissertation. While we joyfully exchanged stories about all the ways we could have answered committee questions differently, we also expressed all the insecurities felt around the completed work and the process itself. It’s called the “Impostor Syndrome.” Coined by clinical psychologists Dr. Pauline R. Clance and Suzanne A. Imes in 1978, “impostor syndrome” refers to high-achieving individuals who have a hard time internalizing their accomplishments because they are always fearful of being exposed as a “fraud.” Leaving one asking all kinds of questions: Is my work good enough? Am I good enough? What will people think of my scholarship or lack thereof? Did my committee really think my dissertation was defensible? And, were their positive remarks about my dissertation and defense really true? But, on the flip side of all of this is always the “dissertation doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be defensible” or “the best dissertation is a finished dissertation.” Yet, for those who have gone through the doctoral studies process, there is no pride in these hollow statements because they know everyone can access their dissertation and see it for what it is.

It has been one year and eleven days since I defended my dissertation. After defending and graduating, I took the summer to rewrite parts of it, edit it, and address my committee’s suggestions. Last August, I printed my dissertation on that expensive paper; uploaded it onto ProQuest and paid the submission fee; and delivered a copy to the Academic Affairs office where they would deliver it to the library to be bound, catalogued, placed in a protective vault, while making it available to anyone who wants to read it. I, also, printed a copy for myself (on regular paper) and put it on the passenger seat of my car. Over time, I moved it to the back window of my car where it has remained for at least eight months. I’ve looked at it sitting back there from time to time, but never thought to pick it up and revisit what I had written. For me, after all of the years of sacrifice, I was through with it. ALL OF IT! Even to the point of asking people not to call me Dr. Langley or Rev. Dr. Langley as would be appropriate considering I am an ordained Elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AMEC).

The process of getting through the doctorate was humbling. Being called Doctor isn’t all encompassing for me. I knew who I was before beginning the process. Yet, I know lots of people who will scratch the skin off of your entire body, piece by piece, if you do not call them Doctor. I just remember the words of a prominent, retired professor telling a group of first year graduate students, “The more you know, the more humble you should be.” Throughout my doctoral studies journey, those words of wisdom have rung true over and over again. Spending years, months, weeks, every waking hour, reading and researching your particular topic leaves a lot of gaps in your knowledge base. There just isn’t time to be up-to-date on everything, on every subject, out there. You don’t even have time to read everything on your topic because new material is being published daily so you try to be as thorough as possible and not worry about the rest.

During the spring of 2000 I was on a twelve-week trip in Nicaragua. I was selected with a group of six students to participate in the Meso-America Project. Our assignment was to aid Hurricane Mitch survivors locate family members, identify temporary housing, make sure women and children had safe spaces from the possibility of violence, and secure small loans for women to start their livelihoods again. I even became a “medical” doctor in one of the emergency, makeshift hospitals, and I surprised myself with my Spanish. For those who do not know, I am multi-lingual; I speak Spanish (Olà), English (Hello), French (Bonjour), and Dagbani (Kawula).

With the ten-week assignment ending, I was exhausted, but the experience had been exhilarating too. The local people suggested I visit the Corn Islands – Big Corn and Little Corn – to rest. Being the adventurous person that I am, I asked another student to join me for a visit to the Islands. Getting there, however, was an adventure within itself. During the week, for the five-hour journey, there is only the local cargo ship. We could have flown, but we wanted the full experience of the people’s everyday lives. When we arrived at the dock, we had to throw our luggage over the deck of the ship while we were pulled, more closely to being dragged, by the sleeves of our clothing, on board. Once on board, I noticed one of the crew members pouring oil in the engine. As the hull filled with smoke, “the little engine that could” was moving right along until midway through our trip, the ship broke down in the middle of the Caribbean Sea.

Waiting for a rescue ship to assist us, I climbed up to the crow’s nest, that part of the ship where a sailor stands to look out over the sea, and on all sides of me was water, water touching sky. In my

silence, I reflected on the fact that the ship could sink and I would never be heard from again, surely eaten by sharks or some other creatures of the sea. I, also, had time to think about all the ways life had challenged me to see the bigger picture. In the scheme of that present situation, I was quite insignificant when compared to the vastness of the water surrounding me. And, for a moment, I had the realization that there will always be someone who is smarter, prettier, richer, something other than me. But, there will never be anyone who is ME.

Over the years, persons have made all kinds of snide remarks to my face as well as behind my back about things they think they know about me. I understand the power of impressions, we all “judge books by their covers” and it’s hard to overcome this to some extent. According to a series of recent studies, presented at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP), “appearance affects everything from whether we end up liking someone to our assessment of their trustworthiness.” The study further revealed that impressions via social media are more negative than those formed face to face.

In the face of unpleasant and sometimes malicious insults, I have been challenged not to fight back. Trust me, it’s not because I don’t have a comeback, it has more to do with what my friend says, “You extend people grace.” There was a time when I didn’t care whose feelings got hurt, come for me and I would crush you. Not saying what came to my mind, didn’t work for me. Some might say, “It still doesn’t.” I know how to be mean and am very capable of doing so, just like everybody else, even those who claim they are the nicest ones. But, I’ve learned, through my own trials, the fragility of people and unaddressed insecurities.

The doctoral process had all of its twists and turns. From the lack of available courses to advising a professor that it was his responsibility to be up-to-date on the sources I was using for my final paper to navigating spaces where micro-aggressions are a daily ritual to losing my mom at the beginning of the writing process. And, the grief journey is no joke. There were days when I was just walking around in a fog. I learned a lot about me and other people during the process. Many of the things I “learned,” I already knew. The lessons were just more pronounced. People will always attempt to edit the parts of your story they don’t know or understand. For example, there are few, very few people who know the real story behind why I pursued the PhD in the first place. I won’t share that story here, but what I will say is this: the entire process had everything to do with my call to radical salvation.

When I hear that any part of my story is being used to discourage others from even attempting the doctoral process, it infuriates me. My journey will never be analogous to anyone else’s. Using me as a case for why other people should or shouldn’t pursue something they strongly believe in, reveals the lengths to which some people will go to dampen and or destroy another’s dreams. But, if anyone can convince you not to follow your heart or call based on one person’s struggles, then, maybe you don’t have what it takes in the first place. For years, I postponed applying to doctoral programs because I had too many other things I was doing with my life. But, what happened on a Friday night many years ago would not go away. Just as I did when I walked to the front of the church, lifted my hands, and yielded my full life to the Lord, I finally surrendered and applied to the PhD program.

The first person I called after opening my acceptance letter was my therapist. After sharing the news with her, I asked, “How much bullshit will I have to endure?” Her answer, “A lot, but get the degree,” was just as it had always been during our weekly sessions, direct and straight to the point. I guess today I woke up feeling some kind of way because I had some things I needed to say and a story I needed to share, particularly as I near the one-year anniversary of earning and graduating with my PhD. There have been some glorious moments on this journey, but there have also been instances when the “blues” were so grave that I contemplated blasting “No More Drama” by Mary J. Blige in the background while driving my car into the water. Until you know my struggle, don’t attempt to edit my story.