Steady As She Goes

This week has been an emotional roller coaster to say the least. As usual, I had those nasty thoughts about throwing my computer out the window. I also experienced a few mini panic attacks and moments of feeling overwhelmed and inadequate. If you have any of these symptoms you might be a college graduate student. But, as we near the end of the week, I have found that I have made some progress though it has been very slow. There were quite a few moments when I closed my eyes and clicked the mouse, hoping and praying  for the best. Transferring my blogs over to another page was the scariest moment of the week. I was so afraid that with one click everything would be wiped away, deleted in an instant. Thankfully, everything worked out and I had success. That moment gave me a glimmer of hope. It’s amazing what tiny moments like these can do to boost your moral.

But then other thoughts and worries began to pop into my head. My thesis research is coming along nicely thanks to my visit Tuesday to the university archives. But after seeing the stacks and stacks of papers and all the organization that has to be done for this process, I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into. I felt the same way when I looked at all the information that I had gathered over the last few months for this website. As I pondered how I was going to sort everything out and motivate myself to just start writing, I suddenly felt like I was in a deep, dark, unending hole. I certainly struggled with putting all those facts into coherent paragraphs while making sure they were put into my own words. There is just so much to consider and at the time I felt as if I had a great weight on my shoulders.  After I finished typing each sub page, I  would have thoughts sporadically pop into my head such as “this isn’t my best work,” or “this just sounds horrible”. I do this frequently with all of my writing. It’s a nasty habit. Sigh. I was and still am to some extent simply overwhelmed by all that I have to get done before the end of this month. Don’t we all wish we had about four or more hours in a day to get everything we need to do done?  I kept having to tell myself to just take it one step at a time and everything would eventually fall into place. It’s certainly a hard lesson to grasp totally and completely. Since then, things have gotten a little bit easier. I still feel a tremendous responsibility weighing upon me to get this right and do it to the best of my ability. But,  I have come to terms with the fact that I am not Wonder Woman and that some things are just out of my hands. Everything gets done with time, patience, and a lot of pep talk.

So, what have I accomplished thus far this week? Besides making some headway with my thesis research, I have polished up my About page, transferred my blogs, created a tab for the history of Downtown Florence and one for Downtown Businesses. I have also created sub pages for the Downtown Businesses page which includes Rogers, Southall, the Surprise Store, and Milner’s Drug Store. Proofreading still needs to be done and I have plans to start working on my next page. The fun never stops. When I began typing out all of the blubs for these sub pages, I realized that even if this entire project does not come out exactly as I planned, I have learned so much, and that I feel is the most important part of this whole process. I have also learned that I can definitely be a little bit too ambitious. I have had to scale back on some of the items I want to include on this site simply because I do not have the time to do them all by the deadline at the end of this month. Anyone who knows me knows that having to scale back is so frustrating. But then again I now have experience putting things on the web and am more comfortable with the process as a whole. Surprisingly, and I cannot believe I am saying this, it has been fun and a great experience. That, however, may change considering this project is not over yet. Let us hope it does not.