Sometimes it takes years to see the lesson behind a story.
My mother has—almost—a Master’s in music. She is a talented and dedicated pianist, still taking lessons well into her eighties.
She completed all the requirements for her Master’s but one: the final thesis. And even that was complete. But.
It’s not clear whether her advisor was misogynistic, racist, or simply in love with his own power (perhaps all three?), but no matter what she did, he wouldn’t approve her thesis.
You might wonder whether my mother’s thesis wasn’t academically sound. To that I say: HA! We’re talking about a woman who, to this day, can discuss with eloquence the histories and musical repertoire of all the major classical composers. Everything she creates is made with precision. No, her thesis was fine. But.
The guy got so petty that at one point he pulled out a ruler, measured the margins, and demanded she retype the whole thing to correct them. This was long before the days of the word processor, mind you. It’s an impressive devotion to pettiness to ask someone to retype, on a manual typewriter, an entire thesis just because you don’t like the margins. Or just because you’re a jerk.
I don’t know what the final straw was, but I think Mom realized he was never going to approve her thesis, and so she simply walked away.
As a child hearing this story, I was struck by the unfairness of it, and imagined that being robbed of a degree would rankle years later. I thought it must be unbearably awful to have worked so hard for something, only to have it snatched from your grasp. I imagined it would be a horrible feeling, one I never wanted to experience.
In an ironic twist of fate, I got to explore this feeling firsthand, in a different set of circumstances. I’d completed all the requirements for a Master’s in Zoology, minus the final thesis, when I was accepted to veterinary school. I’d planned to complete the four years of vet school, then come back and finish off the thesis.
Until life threw me a curveball, that is. Or, rather, a series of curveballs and fastballs and obvious fouls because I was being pelted directly with balls from all directions. In the midst of a whole slew of horribly stressful events, my husband died during my senior year. It’s a miracle I managed to finish my veterinary degree, and by the time I walked away with the letters “DVM” after my name, I was done. The thought of finishing the Master’s, even though there was so little left to do, was too overwhelming.
At first I was angry. Here was one more thing the Universe took away from me. And then I started to wonder why I cared. Would having two additional letters after my name really make any difference? Would finishing off a thesis really make me any more knowledgeable about zoology? Why did it bother me so much?
And that’s when I started to see what I wish I’d seen in my mother’s story all along. There is power in knowing you are a master, with or without the title “Master.” There is power in walking away from what doesn’t serve you.
Every now and then I’ll look up what I’d need to do to finish that degree, and decide it’s too much effort for too little benefit. And I remind myself that I am already a master. And I can walk away.
