Blog Renaissance
Preamble:
Hi. It’s me. I’m back after a long hiatus.
Not really a hiatus, per say, but something else.
I’m not really very busy, I just get overwhelmed easily. Work, internship, class. I’m a new person every day and it’s exhausting. It’s easy for me to go from my comfort zone, straight to my chaos zone.
I’m a social work student. My job is to think, analyze, tease apart, come up with solutions, discuss, reflect upon, listen and repeat. Every day I end up in these deep discussions about immigration, violence, environmental issues, mental health, domestic violence, etcetera. So when I get a free moment, I like to read, nap and spend time with friends.
I’ve adopted this really caviler attitude about things going on in my life. And by caviler, I don’t mean that I don’t care. I just don’t want to feel stressed out all the time.
Like I said, I tend to get overwhelmed pretty easily, but lately I’ve decided not to feel bad about it. I’m usually really anxious about whether I’m doing “enough”.
Making myself feel like I “should” be doing something even if that thing is of no interest or makes me unhappy is not a reason to do something. Also I am working on comparing myself to others. Some people have a better tolerance for stress than I do, obviously. And why do people say that if something isn’t hard, than it’s not worth doing? Does that mean that everything has to be hard (ooer) or does that mean if something is easy that it’s not significant or important? Can’t we just accept that some things are easy and some things are difficult and there is a time in place for both and if everything was difficult all the time, wouldn’t we just stop wanting to do things? And what if something that may be really difficult for one person is easy for another (as most things are) and vice versa? In the words of Eleanor Roosevelt, “Can’t we all just chill the fuck out?”
Try as I must, I simply cannot do it. So lately I’ve been doing the opposite. I actually failed a paper this semester. I get to make it up, but I was uncharacteristically unfazed by this turn of events. So learning to deal with failure and disappointing others, and realize that it’s not –the-end-of –the world is something I’m learning.
So maybe right now I’m not challenging myself. Oh hey, but I’m not beating myself up about it. For the past 2.5 years or so, I’ve been getting these messages about how I’m going to change the world, and that if you’re not actively doing something about it, you’re contributing to the problem. But I’m leaning on this pretty heavily right now: “Take care of yourself or social work will take care of you.”
The end.
The following is neither significant nor poignant. It is merely the pitter patter of Millennial fingers on the keys of self indulgence.
Nub and Thrust (i.e. the actual post)
Ever since I was about 10 years old I have had two major interests, The Holocaust and Tudor England. In fact I got this tape for Christmas around age 12 or 13. Today I am going to talk to you about the Tudors.
I am only mildly interested in other English history. For those of you out there who do not know, the Tudors included Henry the VIII, who had six wives. This time period covers 1485 to 1603.
Fun facts: Henry did not kill all of his wives, as many people believe. Some of them were lucky enough to die of poison induced over a long period of time/heartbreak over losing dear Hal/dampness, and death by infection caused by childbirth. One was able to outlive Henry (barely), only to die in childbirth, with a new husband (Henry’s 3rd wife’s brother) who was trying to get with her step-daughter (Elizabeth I, Henry’s 2nd wife’s daughter, age 14). Another was fortunate to have been considered so ugly that Henry divorced her soon after they wed. So he really only had two wives executed. They were 1st cousins. I did a speech on this in 7th grade.
It’s all so fascinating, sometimes I imagine myself sitting down with a Tudor Scholar and having my head filled with more knowledge about this family than anyone could find useful. I’m like a deranged maniac when it comes to this family. I can’t get enough.
I mean, can you imagine living in a world like that? When people say things like “I wish things were like they used to be”, my mind automatically goes back to Tudor England. I think what people mean by this statement is that they miss simplicity. But things weren’t great in the good ole days (whatever good ole days means to you), they were just bad in a different way. Different times, different ways to oppress people. I suppose that less simplicity means consideration for more people and some can’t handle that. But now you can divorce someone without chopping off their head, or hoping she dies from the plague. Win-win?
On another note, I get pretty angry when the hit series “The Tudors” tries to mess with my head and makes up storylines, and mashes two people into one character and then nothing makes sense to me anymore. The story is pretty good without having to make substantial changes. So suck it Showtime.
I don’t mean that, Jonathan Rhys Meyers is muy caliente.
(Try and find 5 differences between these portraits!)
So now you have a pretty good idea of how cool I am.
-Sarah
