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Mid Semester Musings
Last Tuesday, while gearing up for concurrent battles with both free online templates and writer’s block, I received an unexpected email from an unexpected source. As I was practically begging for any sort of meaningful distraction, it didn’t sit unread for long (not that it mattered much - I recognized it pretty much the second it came through). I looked at the subject line again: Nationals Critiques. If I had been sitting in a television studio instead of the McConnell Center, perhaps I would’ve wondered aloud.
I clicked on the attachment, and, sure enough, found myself looking at, well me. A former me, at least, preserved in the near-forgotten footage of my final dance competition performance last June. I didn’t get too far past the opening seconds, as I wasn’t sure I wanted the voices of the competition’s judges critiquing me to punctuate my 15-year dance “career”, fearing damage to the plume of nostalgia the video evoked.
I started dancing when I was 3. Nearing the end of my senior year, I began to reckon with the fact that I would soon have to leave it behind. I anticipated missing dance for the actual activity it was; what I didn’t anticipate, however, were its byproducts - the secondary aspects upon which I had been relying since my first day in the studio. Of course, this included all kinds of things - community, exercise, creativity - most of which could be relatively easily replaced. For some reason, though, I had never bothered to consider that going to dance classes at least 3 times a week for 15 years is bound to have some sort of more significant impact; that became clear about a month into school when I realized that dance had been my way of centering myself. Unfortunately, as the need to center myself didn’t dissipate alongside my mechanism for doing so, this was somewhat of an unwelcome conclusion.
I’ve always felt the whole “take time for yourself” mantra to be creeping dangerously close to cliche territory, but even I can’t deny the truth beneath the sentiment. Recognition, though, does not always translate into actual action. It is hard to make time for yourself while engrossed in an environment that seems to demand the opposite. So what, then, should we do? How do we stay grounded and avoid getting swept away by the chaos to all sides? To be honest, I’m not sure I could offer a definitive answer. What I do know is that it’s necessary to try. When I find myself with a quiet moment alone, it’s nice to just sit for a second, without having to think of anything else. This isn’t exactly a practice I would consider “revolutionary”, but it’s nice. For now, I think that’s enough.
Megan Crowley is a McConnell Scholar in the class of 2025. She is studying political science at the University of Louisville.