Grey

If a feeling could be a colour, grey it would be, post-submission. Not terrible blackness! Not joyous white or refreshing sky blue, but that grey, cloudy colour that signals inertia, an in-between state of the post-PhD emotional world. I think this feeling is to the fore because in between the submission and the viva is a period of time for disentangling from the work. Having steadily chipped away at this research, the brain gets used to that kind of working day. When it doesn’t have to do that any more, I’m not sure it knows what to do, and keeps doing what it did before, carrying on regardless.

In my case, I started reading Adorno again and made plans for journal articles, having not ‘come down’ from the PhD yet. But I couldn’t focus on Adorno, or the articles. I needed a break, one that my brain didn’t want to give me! My lecturing has been keeping me occupied for some of the time, but this transitional space is strange. The creative side has not re-engaged yet. I don’t feel as if I’ve let go of the thesis enough to allow time for the art (hence turning to Adorno!). Strange, grey space.