Reflecting on my time thus far at MTC, I would say that the word that best describes my internship has been growth. You might be thinking, ‘It’s an internship; I hope you are growing.’ Everybody grows during their internship. Going into this internship, I knew that I would grow. Growing is uncomfortable. Trying new things is scary. Taking any step outside of my safe little bubble feels like being asked to go skydiving. Growing has been frustrating and difficult, but also rewarding and hard-earned, too.
Lately, the word recontextualizing has been popping up a lot in my life. What is recontextualizing? What does it mean to me? And what does it have to do with growth?
Definition of recontextualizing
If you ask Google, to recontextualize is to consider the matter from a new or different context. To me, recontextualizing can be a lot of things. It can be choosing to find the positive or something I can learn from in the situation. It can be not overthinking or looking at something with such a black and white perspective. Most simple of all, it can be taking a step back from the situation in order to see it objectively.
Recontextualizing in my life
Last week I was having a rough week. I just could not catch a break. The funny thing is, now a week later, I can’t even remember everything that the week was so hard. All I could think was that it was an awful week and that I felt cursed. I felt like I had somehow offended the universe and offset the balance of things. Do I believe that I was actually cursed or that I was manifesting for bad things to happen? No. I do believe that our brains are great at finding patterns, whether they exist or not. I was thinking negatively, so the negative instances felt bigger.
My computer shut down, and I lost all my progress on my marketing assignment. Cursed? Maybe. Or maybe it was a chance to grow.
Maybe I just needed to view it from a non-cursed feeling viewpoint. My supervisors told me that maybe this was a chance to start over and approach the project with less overthinking involved. My first thought to that was “that’s baloney”. That thought was quickly followed by “they are asking me to think less about a creative project. I am not creative”.
Creativity
That is the sentence. I am not creative. In fact, I feel like a very uncreative person. Creative and artsy to me is coloring a picture that had the lines and image added far before it came to me. That is concrete. Research is concrete. Making an eye-catching marketing material from scratch so that I can hopefully set up a new contract for my final is pretty far from concrete. I have aphantasia. I cannot visualize. I have no idea what I want or what I think it should look like. Just let me stick to my research and data and spiral… spiral…. spiral.
What does it mean to be creative? Does creativity only pertain to art, and in this case, graphic design? Aren’t I creative in other ways? Haven’t I written my own music? Improvised within a session? Made music from nothing every day? These thoughts had no choice but to permeate in my brain as my supervisor stared me down and made me repeat that I was creative. But she and my brain (later) were right. Recontextualizing my definition of creativity changed the answer to whether I found myself to be creative or not. I may not be painting any masterpieces soon, but dang, did I make a good Canva marketing graphic.
Difficult conversations
I have to recontextualize after difficult conversations. As an intern, there are times when my supervisors and I have to have harder conversations, where constructive criticism is given. It is hard not to take everything personally, to not feel that every criticism is a personal failing on my part. You may think that sounds dramatic, but it is true for me. I have been working really hard to take a step back and to look at the situation objectively. To listen and go over what was actually said and not just what my feelings and brain heard.
New experiences
I didn’t realize how much I recontextualize in my life outside of my internship recently. I struggle to try new things, especially foods. When at a restaurant, no one is surprised when I order my safe foods. I’m lucky that most restaurants I go to, I can order a salad or chicken or a burger, but when that’s not an option, I get super anxious. Two weeks ago, I was almost in tears when my boyfriend said his family made summer rolls. I couldn’t just leave after they graciously made food. I started to spiral. I’d never had Vietnamese food before. What if I didn’t like it? What if it were a ‘bad’ texture? I wouldn’t have anything else to be able to eat, and then my blood sugar would get low and spiral… spiral….. spiral.
With the help of my boyfriend, we recontextualized the summer rolls. Summer rolls are made out of rice paper. Well, I have had rice before. I have had rice noodles before. I’ve had shrimp before. I’ve had carrots and spinach before. Something that was so scary wasn’t so scary anymore.
Growing
Recontextualizing has been a tool to aid in my growth this last month. Growing is more than just trying to find the positives each day. I don’t believe in toxic positivity or that we all have to be positive all of the time. Growing is showing up and trying. It has only been six months, and I have so much more growing to do, but it’s good to acknowledge all the growth I have made.
Growing is hard. Growing is not linear. Growing takes time.
GraceAnne
