Can we breathe now?

The journey is finally over.

It is definitely bitter sweet. It is over, but not the end. It is in fact a new beginning, a new journey, or one that I am merely taking into the world, continuing what I started.

But it is still over. Four years ago, I started what I told myself I would never do.

But here I am, holding in my hands the degree that I finally finished, the highest awarded degree (besides honorary doctorate) in my country. I cannot do another degree that trumps this one, as this one is the final culmination point of the whole journey.

It is truly bitter sweet. My studies were at stages my whole life, as I got up in the morning, already planning the day's writing, going to bed, already planning the next day's writing.

It never stopped, as when I started my Master's thesis in 2018, I never truly stopped writing my research.

Now it has come to an end. Yes, my research continues, as I am in the process of writing a book, many book chapters, and many articles. But it tastes differently, it smells differently, it is just different. I get up in the morning, with no real pressure from the idea of my supervisors looking over my shoulder.

The process has now stopped.

I submitted my book a couple of weeks ago to the editors, and the process was daunting. I did not have a supervisor that checked and read my work. No one helped me in the process, I did not have a peer that checked my writing and arguments.

It was truly me against the world.

But now the world is opening up in a different color. The world is now open. Not as unknown and uncharted waters, but an ocean full of potential.

The world is open to explore, experiment with, and to come to new ideas that might change everything. Or nothing. Because inherently part of experimenting is failure. And that is important.

In the end, my fiance bought me a bottle of MCC with the title PhD. We popped the bottle and we celebrated the PhD.

For what else can one do in this situation?

But the funny thing is that this celebration felt like a kind of let down. All four years for one day's celebration.

But this is not the correct way to look at it.

In the end, it was the journey, and not the destination.

For now, let us again begin to move, to traverse, to dwell, to search, to look, to inquiry, to seek...