Today was a hard day. We woke up this morning to news of a massacre in Orlando. At least 50 people killed, at least 50 people injured. It is the worse mass shooting in the history of our country. My heart goes out to the victims and their families. I send love and prayers to Orlando, as well as our friends in the LGBTQ and Muslim communities. It’s all so hard to stomach, and the desire to just shut down and go into hiding is strong.

I’m scared.

I will not hide, though.

Our country needs love (and gun control).

There is so much REAL hate all over the place, and all of us have the duty to try to tip the odds of survival in favor of love. Every single one of us has the ability to influence change. We have the ability to influence action. We have the ability to be a light when the world around us is dark, dark, dark.

In the middle of all of this, we’re expected to keep working, though. How? How can we talk about summer vacations and ice cream and basketball when our hearts are broken and the tears won’t stop flowing? How do we parent our children? How do we make love to our partners? How do we sing in church, or binge watch our favorite shows? How do we pray?

We just do it.

Those of us who can, we take the first steps and push through and keep moving.
We reach a hand out and pull up our friends who may not be able to recover as quickly.
We make time to take care of ourselves.
We give ourselves permission to break down, to throw shit, and curse and scream at the top of our lungs.
We give ourselves permission to laugh. To take delight in our loved ones. To giggle at a funny meme.

We give blood. We give money.
We give everything we have to each and every day that we’re on this earth.

Whatever we do, we don’t give up. We don’t stop.

We don’t stop.