The calm before the storm

Dear friends, I am sitting at my kitchen table, watching the sky darken outside. I am relaxed - actually shockingly so. My dissertation has been turned in. I finished my defense presentation yesterday, and I've already practiced it twice. The logistical issues surrounding my defense have gradually gotten solved. Little by little, my to-do list is dwindling.

This feels wrong. Shouldn't I be stressed to the gills right now? Shouldn't I be frantically working, scrambling to meet a deadline? I have to be missing something.

I've never been a procrastinator. In fact, whenever I know there's a task to be completed, I feel something like an itch in my brain. I simply can't move on or relax until it's done. So I work, sometimes frantically, until the itch goes away. I always finish way ahead of schedule, then wonder why I was stressed in the first place.

Maybe my anti-procrastination method is paying off. I've gotten most everything in order with almost two weeks to spare. I suppose I should enjoy this calm while I have it, because my defense is going to be a crazy tornado of visitors and family members and committee members and labmates and stressing and defending and hopefully passing and just trying to keep myself together. 

The storm is coming.

The cover slide for my defense presentation