It’s funny how your perspective can change sometimes. I’ve always liked sad movies and books, and yet a few years back I wrote about how for awhile I couldn’t stand them after several very sad things happened in my own life. Now I’m back to loving sad things again, but lately a new change has occurred to my entertainment tastes.

I’ve never really minded stories dealing with evil and darkness. Sure, I’ve always been sensitive to the portrayal of certain kinds of evil–to twistedness, or darkness just for its own sake. But when it’s a story about the fight for justice or about the triumph of good, even if the story was complicated–I loved it. Action movies. Murder mystery TV shows. People wrestling through moral dilemmas big and small.

But the past few weeks–I just can’t tolerate it anymore.

When I was looking for a show to watch during my days of holding and caring for Violet, a few people had suggested Blue Bloods. Actually, these people had been suggesting the show to me for years. So I started it. And I liked it. I liked the family aspect, the unusually solid morals and ethics, and the pro-law-enforcement angle. But after watching it for awhile, I got more and more depressed.

I just couldn’t handle the evil presented. Rapists. Murderers. Violence. Hatred. Many people doing evil just for its own sake. Even though the point of the show was the fight against these things–a worthy, noble fight. I just couldn’t handle watching it. I tried to watch Twin Peaks with my husband and got too scared to continue. Even things I used to love, like the Dark Knight trilogy, affect me differently than before.

Why? I have some ideas, but I don’t know for sure. Is it postpartum hormones just making me more sensitive? Is it a new awareness because my baby is right here with me and I hate dwelling on the evils of the world she’ll grow up facing? Or is it unrelated to my baby–is it just being worn down by the world and all the terrible, ungodly things that are out there? Or is it all of the above?

I don’t know. But rather than continuing to analyze it, I got wise and stopped watching Blue Bloods. I removed dark, scary, or even just questionable things from my to-watch list. Violet and I are now on a strict diet of Disney movies, Little House on the Prairie, and Gilmore Girls. We are focusing for now on the sweet and innocent things in the world. I’ve come to learn that these changes in perspective are usually just for a season–and I’ve come to realize that they’re okay. It’s okay to just retreat a little bit for awhile from things that you are currently not equipped to handle. It’s okay to focus for awhile on simpler things that don’t require as much emotional and spiritual processing.

I’m sure I’ll shift again at some point, and–I think that maybe this purer time will better prepare me for it. Right now it’s time to enjoy my daughter, turn from complicated things, and recharge.