My heart hurts. How is yours doing?
This last week felt so heavy to me. The U.S. hit the staggeringly awful milestone of 1 million deaths due to COVID. Everyone I know is angry about Republicans going after our hard-earned freedoms as women. And at the time of this writing, we were hit with news of yet another mass shooting — I think this makes the 200th mass shooting just in 2022.
And as if that wasn’t enough, we had to deal with the unending attacks by Republican politicians on everything — our democracy, our rights, our children, and even plain-as-day facts.
It’s hard to take.
And it’s in these moments that I have to take a moment and remind myself that I cannot possibly take all of this on in my psyche. I cannot make a meaningful difference in every issue I’d like to see corrected. Trying to do so will only frustrate me and burn me out. Which means I’ll be good for nothing.
For me, taking action is the only way to heal the heart, and to relieve anxiety and worry. I am doubling down on working to elect more good people to all levels of government because I know what I can do to help, and because I think getting the right officials in place can help relieve so many other issues that ail our country.
You may choose to direct your efforts in a different way than me. But I do encourage everyone to keep working at helping to improve one issue. You’ll see the progress being made, however small, and you’ll find a community of people who feel the same as you. And when you have that community, you can commiserate when the world seems to be ablaze, and remind each other to get back to work.
Take care of yourselves. We need you.
Categories: Uncategorized
We’ll said Tokyo! Thank you!
Thank you. Makes Monday better. I live smack dab in maga country and could always use encouragement. You da best!
All power to you, my friend. Stay strong.
Your honest expression of feelings is helpful! I recently bought Timothy Snyder’s
“On Tyranny.” What has helped me is lesson 15 from that might little book- “contribute to good causes.” A local scout organized a local intown park cleanup this weekend. I participated, met neighbors, and community was strengthened.
That’s exactly right — I find it is so good for my soul to help the community.
Thank you for being there. Remember that you light up our lives with your weekly cartoon round-up. That alone is a great service for me, even though it mixes levity with pathos.
You describe the feelings well. It is too much, but we can’t give up. It is good advice to focus on one or two issues. Even then, we need to take a minute at times to pull a pillow over our heads for a little bit. I value your posts because they are honest and always look for actions to take.
Thank you for this comment. I honestly believe taking action can do so much good — certainly for our community, but also for ourselves.
This is a lovely and supportive blog, thank you for this ❤️
Thank you, Karin.