I Really am Trying to Work...

I am in the umpteenth year of my PhD. I have a deadline in two days for my latest written piece which is a mapping out of a potential introduction. I am working on a rationale piece; a few pages explaining my choice of primary texts. I feel like I am getting nowhere, just swimming around in circles in the soupy swamp water that is my academic life.

Research is a lonely occupation. Nobody believes that I really am working; no-one gets what I am talking about and nobody actually wants to. My family thinks I am available all the time and at a moment's notice for hours on end. My friends make stupid comments like "when will you eventually have a job?" and "you don't know how lucky you are not to work". I am paid nothing and feel guilty all the time about not earning a living.

I often forget why I even started this process and dream of getting a full time job in a bakery with plenty of company, a living wage, no solitary thinking days and access to all the cakes and pies I can eat...