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Alexia: Hi! I’m Alexia Bailey, a junior here at the University of Colorado Boulder. Because I’ve been here and seen things, I’m here to share everything I’ve picked up so far, which is a surprising amount of information. “What’s Eating at Alexia” is my unofficial and unfiltered guide to some of the things that being a CU Boulder Buff brings. Think of it as your guide to navigating everything that makes CU Boulder, well, CU Boulder. Whether you’re a freshman finding your footing or a senior with “no body, no crime” level grievances about finals week, I’m here to share my takes, tips and honest observations on everything from the sometimes-unpredictable choices that CU Boulder makes to navigating online controversies that surround and impact college life. College is a wild, unforgettable ride, and “What’s eating at Alexia” is here to make sense of some of it, one opinion at a time.
You’d think after how much time I’ve spent in Counseling and Psychiatric Services (CAPS) recently, they’d give me a punch card. After your fifth session, you get a complimentary emotional support stuffed buff?
But in all seriousness, with the falling of the leaves and the drop in the temperature, I think that the general feeling around campus is a mutual burnt-outness. In early October, University Libraries announced that Norlin Commons would be accessible 24 hours a day, Monday through Thursday, with Buff OneCard access for people to study for their midterms, and the nap pods around campus always seem to be occupied. I’d be surprised by the drop in morale if this wasn’t my third time watching it spread throughout campus.
I mean, my roommates and I have begun our cyclical schedules in which we never see each other, except when creeping into our beds at night attempting to not wake the others up and yet, always failing. It’s also that time of year I cringe when turning on the news to listen to the onslaught of awfully sad headlines that spell out doom and despair and the really mean almost-slandering campaign ads that run every election cycle. It’s exhausting.
I think that it’s hard to be kind to ourselves and to one another in this state of emotional exhaustion. When we’re exhausted, kindness can start to feel like another obligation on an already impossibly long to-do list. We become shorter with the people we love, less patient with strangers, and more critical of ourselves for not being able to do everything we think we should. It’s hard to extend grace to someone else when you’ve spent the entire day refusing to extend it to yourself. And college doesn’t exactly make this easier. There’s always another assignment to submit, another exam to study for, another meeting to attend, or another email that desperately needs a response. Even when we aren’t doing something, there’s usually something else we feel like we should be doing. Rest becomes something must to earn rather than something we’re allowed to need.
I wonder how much of our frustration with one another is really just frustration with ourselves. How many times have we interpreted someone’s silence as rudeness when they were simply tired? How often have we been impatient with a friend, a roommate, or a stranger because we had nothing left to give? It’s easy to assume the worst about people when we’re already struggling to feel our best. I’m not suggesting that exhaustion excuses cruelty or that we should tolerate being mistreated because someone else is having a difficult semester. But I do think there’s a difference between holding people accountable and assuming the worst of them. Sometimes, a little patience is the difference between turning an already difficult day into a worse one and making it a little more bearable.
I don’t think that we don’t need another cliche campus initiative, motivational poster, or reminder to practice self-care. We just need to give ourselves and one another permission to be imperfect for a while. To miss a social event because we’re tired. To admit that we’re struggling without immediately following it with a reassurance that we’re fine. To ask our roommates how they’re doing and actually wait for an answer. To recognize that the person who snapped at us whilst boarding the Buff Bus might be having a terrible day, even if we’ll never know the details.
As the semester drags on and the days grow shorter, I think we could all stand to be a little gentler with one another. We don’t have to become best friends with every person we pass on our way to class, and we certainly don’t have to pretend that everything is fine when it isn’t. But we can acknowledge that we’re all human beings trying to get through the same exhausting season, even if our reasons for being exhausted are different. We’re all just trying to make someone proud, whether that be our fathers or ourselves, and perhaps that bar we are all simultaneously setting may be a bit too high. We need to at the very least begin to stop treating exhaustion like a competition. There is no prize for being the busiest person on campus and certainly no punch card for surviving the semester with your sanity intact.
I very recently learned this, and I hope, dearest reader, that you can learn it too. After all, sometimes, we all need someone to remind us to give ourselves the same grace we so freely give to everyone else, and it makes a world of difference.
Stay kind, Buffs.
Contact CU Independent Managing Editor Alexia Bailey at Alexia.Bailey@colorado.edu
