The Privilege of Breaking Down

making it through

The Mosquito Net / John Singer Sargent /

Breaking down is a privilege.

I have learned this many times.

I am learning it again now.

Hives bloom overnight; tiny bumps littering my skin, screaming for attention. My body has opened its windows; my body does what it wants. Vertigo and nausea breeze through my ear canal and settle in my stomach.

My editor emails me in late January asking about my revision. I ask for more time. She doesn’t respond. In the past year and a half, I have turned around two revisions, each on a tight timeline. I can’t do it again. I want this one to be good. To be done. But it takes time.

I plead with the people who brought me to this Ph.D. program. Can I drop a class? Is there anything I can do to give myself more space? They lured me here: I remember the conversation clearly. All the promises about flexibility and cheap rent. They suggest medical leave, which would leave me without a paycheck and without health insurance. My neighbor, a tenured professor, assures…