i choose love.

hi.

it's me.
I'm still here.
it's just that sometimes when the world gets too big.
and too ugly
and too many lines get drawn in the sand.
that i tend to shrink back into my own little physical world.

not because i'm afraid,
but because I know that this is where I can affect real change.
right here,
this is where i can do the most good.
to my kids.
to my family.
to my friends.
in this little part of the world that I am physically in.

I can push out kindness and peace and love and from here it can,
will,
must
(please)
ripple out to all corners of the big world.

i sat and cried, hard cried; tears streaming down my face with my hand over my mouth so as not to wake my two napping girls because of a line from law & order SVU this week.
in the show, a former child solider of the LRA had cried out in a church that God had forsaken him,
"Is He deaf to our suffering?"

and i cried, and cried, and cried.

so much suffering.
real suffering.

and that's not to belittle anyone's current state of suffering in the whole range of what constitutes as suffering that runs far and wide.

I know it's not the perfect way to go about life; looking at suffering through the lens that some suffering is greater than others.  But in the blessed world where i operate that many people's greatest suffering (mine included) on a daily basis is a slow driver in front of us when we are in a hurry-- the enormity of the disproportion of suffering presses down on my chest as a constant reminder to be grateful.

To always be grateful in this life of mine that, if I'm being completely honest with myself, is at worst, slightly annoying.

mostly, i resolve to never be so afraid of something bad happening to me, that it blinds me from seeing the people who are suffering from the bad thing that actually  is happening to them.

so i turn in.
to my kids.
to my family.
to my friends.
and we talk about love, and empathy and kindness.
and we show each other love and empathy and kindness.
and act out of love and empathy and kindness in all things that we do.

because this is the only way that i know how to spread good.
by doing the good.

it is not through shares, and likes, and comments.

it's in the loving.
it's in the compassion and empathy.
it's in the doing.

we can live our life in fear or with love.
and i choose love.