I have my life back...

Now that my qualifying exam is behind me, life is full of possibility again. Time to spend with friends. Time to have hobbies. Time to do the work that I came to graduate school to do, instead of sitting around fretting about whether or not I deserve to be here.

I feel so grateful, being able to return to the things and people and places and activities that I really do love, and to live free from all that pressure. Of course, now that the external pressures are off, I have realized that it's going to have to be an internal drive to the finish line the next three or four years. Both a blessing and a curse - on one hand, I am my own best advocate and on the other my own worst enemy.

I'm trying to spend a lot of time thinking about how I want to structure my time and what I really want to fill it with. What's really *me* and what are things that I don't care for but do because I "ought". What oughts are good and what oughts are not necessary? I want to be excited about every minute of my life again, not just "it's alright".