Burnout

I’m totally burned out. I had no idea. I thought I was just being lazy until I tried to actually pay attention at the Centro yesterday and I just couldn’t. It was awful. I obviously still care about them and their situation and I really enjoy their day-to-day hanging out and their lace is fabulous, but me and this whole thing where I try to understand other cultures? I think we’re kind of done with each other.

Honestly, that’s what I’ve gained from this more than anything else – nothing even close to an understanding of Brazilian culture, but an understanding that there is so much of the world that is not my world, and that doesn’t just mean that it’s foreign and interesting and exciting, but that being put in a position where you have to try to understand it is dramatically uncomfortable and I don’t really want to have to do it again. I don’t want to try to understand it. It feels like enough to know that it is there, and that I don’t understand it. This feels like such a cop-out kind of attitude, and I didn’t think I would respond to this experience this way, but there it is.

I’ve also learned to go with the flow. But that’s another series of thoroughly unexciting and mildly disappointing stories for another day.

It’s just occurred to me to be thankful that we measure time the same way. How freaking irritating would that be, to have to constantly convert units of time? Jesus.