I have been struggling -- hard and for a little while now. My significant other and I have packed up our lives to move to Washington D.C. for the summer for internships with our own respective programs. I have been balancing the end of a wild semester, work, and my personal life, all while trying to envision what my life will be like over the next three months. It’s hard and I need to talk about it.
In September, I experienced the hardest breakup in my life and fought to stay in Fayetteville while still going to school and work while coping with the situation at hand. I thought that 2018 was going to be the hardest year I’ve ever had, but 2019 did the life-equivalent of “Heh, heh. Hold my beer.” While trying to prepare for my tumor-removal surgery, and then soon after, my revision surgery, I was working diligently to apply for The Washington Center and find an internship to get my spot in D.C., despite the reality of actually having to go never really occurring to me. My significant other applied on his own and worked hard to ensure that I was getting what I needed while also working to find his internship program and attending classes. It was a crazy time. As I have discussed previously on my blog, I struggle with severe anxiety daily. About a month before we have planned to leave, the panic started to set in about the trip. Having never flown before and struggling when my mom flew to New Orleans many years back, the idea of flying is terrifying to me. Yes, I know it feels like a roller coaster, which I have almost equal disdain for, and it’s no big deal. But this is a big deal to me. I had to find business clothes, book an Airbnb, book our flights, work it out with my job, figure out what to do with my apartment, and still maintain good standing with school. But I did it. I realized that, had circumstances not changed from the way things were in September, I wouldn’t have even applied for the program and probably would have let my fear of flying alone keep me from going. But I didn’t. In my life, I have always lived the mantra that good things never came easy and you have to deal with unpleasant things to get to a better place. Making do teaches the soul a lot. But my mantra had to change when I started to lay awake and sob to Jake saying, “I’m so terrified. What if this isn’t what I should be doing?” I had to go from arguing that unpleasantness is necessary to life to saying, over and over again, “If whatever you’re doing doesn’t scare the shit out of you, you aren’t doing it right.” Seeing as how almost anything outside of a typical routine tends to scare to me to a certain extent, it was empowering to realize that discomfort is necessary to change. As someone who is almost always uncomfortable to a varying degree, I realized that it meant I’m heading in the right direction. When I went through my breakup in September, one of the main assertions that I had to keep telling myself is that it’s okay to be selfish sometimes. Empaths notoriously put themselves second to anyone and anything that requires attention and love. In applying for D.C., I dealt with guilt around being gone all summer, launching a GoFundMe, and even asking my job to let me change my employment status from part-time to seasonal (meaning I can work when I get back). I wanted to put those things above the reality that this opportunity was beyond any I ever expected for myself. Even with my grandmothers, both, being in the hospital while I’m in town and getting ready to go, I am reminded how much pride I take in the strength of my family. Through this experience in applying for the internship, recovering from two surgeries, finding out I didn’t have cancer (thank God), going through a break up, dealing with anxiety, working, and going to school, I have learned the value in growing no matter the condition of the soil. Growth happens when discomfort takes place. -The Cynic
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Disclaimer: This is by no means an attempt to indoctrinate anyone. Believe me, I’ve had this fight with many, many people. But I want to discuss one of my favorite things: food. I work at Whole Foods, who is perceived to be the figurehead of environmental consideration and healthy eating. When people learn that, they sometimes expect that I live a no-waste, raw vegan lifestyle and truth be told… I don’t. At all, or by any means. For example, I am currently surrounded by a package of cat litter that was purchased in a plastic bag, a 92 count set of plastic food containers, and am wearing non-sustainable clothing that I’m sure was made in the name of fast fashion. I know that these things will harm the environment, I know I can do more, I know that my minimalism is slipping. But I’m trying and that’s what I want to discuss. I tell people all the time that I didn’t get as big as I was on accident -- I ate a lot during my first year of college, gaining about 40 pounds. I think it’s safe to say that 20 of those pounds were at the hand of cafeteria burgers. I’ve been a vegetarian since September 2018 and I find myself answering the same questions: “You don’t eat meat? Like… at all?”, “You don’t even eat fish??”, and “How do you get your protein?” Often times, these questions come in succession and I find that in a college town, many people are attempting an alternative diet to what we are taught as kids with little success. This is by no means a criticism of the people or their attempts -- those attempts are just as important as successes, but I think that people make these lifestyle changes more complicated than they have to. (And my experience seems to be rare, so I apologize if I come off as flippant, I just can’t fully understand the struggle no matter how hard my empath-heart tries.) Vegetarianism is not something that requires you to go into a rage-induced fit where you throw out all of the meat in your house and begin talking about how you haven’t had meat in 4 hours and you’re suddenly iron deficient. It is a conscious choice, but it doesn’t require constant attention and nursing. In September, I was moving into an apartment on my own and coping with a breakup while still balancing school and work. Food, while amazing, was rarely enjoyed because I was constantly running to the next thing. That means that when I got a chance to eat, I had to make sure it was nutrient-dense food (this is always something to strive for, but I was struggling to make time to eat, so it was something I had to really think about). I began buying vegetables and fruit and googling “easy vegetarian recipes”. The results often yielded 15-ingredient, 14-step recipes that, for a college student, was unbelievably unrealistic. So I took it to basics. I made rice bowls with mushrooms, bell peppers, onions, carrots, broccoli, and veggie egg rolls that you put in the oven. I made so many burrito/fajita bowls. I made breakfast with eggs (yes, not vegetarian technically, but I found that if I eliminate that from my diet, I will not get enough natural protein) and toast, more than occasionally just popping Eggo waffles into the toaster and running through the door to class. But I ate when I was hungry and made sure that I didn’t have meat in the house. Veggie burgers and soy nuggets curbed the craving for burgers or chicken nuggets easily and deliciously. These saved my life on days that I was super rushed and would have probably gone out to eat at a fast food restaurant. I’m not saying that correlation implies causation, but I have lost almost 40 pounds since that life change. The question that comes up less often, but that I find myself answering the most is why. Why did I go vegetarian? That’s a multifaceted answer, but the TLDR (too long, didn’t read) version is: I wanted to for the personal, ecological, and animal cruelty issues we face today as meat eaters. I’m sure if you’re in touch with a single environmentally-conscious young person, you know that there is a plethora of videos of animals being mistreated by farm owners, slaughtered with little consideration for their lives, and even videos of young animals being separated minutes after birth from their mother. These videos are in no sort of shortage, but the animals, however, will be within the next few generations. These animals suffer. This makes me sound like a bleeding heart hippie, but honestly, humans have a tendency to believe we are entitled to the world and its resources around us. This fact is what causes a lot of my disdain for meat-eating. We choose that our desire to eat meat is more valuable than the feelings of those beings that we are eating.
David Foster Wallace, the man dubbed the greatest writer of our time, discusses the issue of animal suffering in his essay, “Consider the Lobster.” In said essay, Wallace tells the tale of the Maine Lobster Fest and tries to reconcile the eating of animals, specifically lobsters, for pleasure. He discusses scientific indicators of animals feeling pleasure and why he finds it hard to eat animals if he knows it suffered in the venture to his plate. His resolution: don’t think about it. And that’s fine. Awareness is valuable, but action is infallible. Movers-and-shakers were once simply advocates. An important element of this to not push your partner, housemates, or family members to become vegetarians if they aren’t interested. Your choice is not theirs. My boyfriend is still a meat-eater, but he tries to assure that the meat he consumes is ethically sourced and sustainably farmed, which is important as well. If you’re going to eat meat, please attempt to make sure it’s been obtained in an ethical way. You don’t have to give up meat for the sake of sustainability if you legitimately cannot function without it, but put good food in your body instead of what’s cheap and easy. I say all of this to tell you it’s possible to be a vegetarian. Cheese pizzas can be jazzed up with veggies, burritos are absolutely delicious with beans instead of beef or chicken, and there are substitutes to appease the craving of meat. An attempt, or even a meatless Monday, toward vegetarianism makes an impact, both in your wallet and in the longevity of the planet. - The Cynic |
AuthorGabrielle Willingham is a young Arkansan woman who sees the importance of simultaneous cynicism and optimism. Gabrielle is currently working on a MA in Communication with a focus in gender studies and political science. Archives
January 2021
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