I have written a number of draft posts over the past eight months, with titles such as: “Recalibration”, “My Privilege”, “How to Help”, and “Pride in the Time of COVID”. I would sit and write them in slices of time my family would help me carve out, and then I’d never publish them. You see, I just can’t move on from the feeling that I’m just making more noise in a time when I should be listening and learning, then supporting. I want to learn more so I can do better.

The world for the past year has often felt dark, heavy, and sad, and finding joy in these times of sickness and civil unrest is not an easy feat. So, I wanted to take a moment away from staying quiet(er), to pop by and say to whomever may find this note on ye interwebs, that I’m sending love from my heart to yours.

It feels almost criminal to laugh with abandon, cry tears of happiness, or revel in joy right now. But, I try and hold on to the saying, “it’s always darkest before the dawn”, even as, at times, I feel the positive resolve I woke with falling through my fingers like sand. Sometimes, I listen to “Only If For a Night” by Florence and the Machine, and realize as I flail my body all about, as though to shake the demons out, that my face is wet with my own tears. I dream of hope and unity and kindness and love for people the world over, even as these wishes feel futile and childish.

I have to remind myself often that I can only control my own actions, and as such, I shall choose to use my time, this very moment, to reiterate that you are not alone. You are loved. These days, in this charged environment, it often feels like I’m dragging around a backpack loaded with emotional bricks that can never be set down. But, you have power.

It is part of the human condition to desire things, and being human, I am not immune to this. My desires lately, have been full of daydreams and converstations about how to actually make the world a better place, starting in our own home. You can make the positive changes you wish to see in the world happen with your actions, and I hope to continuously work on this by taking actions that help myself, my beloved family, my darling friends, and strangers alike, feel LOVED.