Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet - Earth Water Fire Air

Some darkness found me lately.  Or perhaps I found it, or even sought it out somehow.

I've determined some factors that contributed to it (I won't list them here) and am cautiously grateful to be feeling sort of "right" again.

I'm trying to also recognize factors that have helped me out of it.  One, for sure, is that I'm taking a grad class.

I need to say that again.

I'm taking a graduate course.  So far, I've spent three days around other teachers, plus two very cool instructors and one professor/Ph.D/empress from the university through which I'm taking the class.  I have four more days next week, then we'll meet monthly over the next school year.

I had forgotten how well I do when I'm taking classes.

Of course, I'm struggling with the paperwork/minutiae that comes with it.  In fact, that was one of my goals for the course (we were asked by the instructor to set three goals for ourselves for the course).  My goals were kind of squishy, and I added a fourth because one of them ("Have at least one meaningful conversation with another teacher") was met within the first hour, and has been met several times since.

Wow. I met a goal.  And I have had meaningful conversations with other teachers.

It's so normal, but it feels huge to me.

I've been in the mud, under the ground, in this crazy hell of mine for weeks.  To open my eyes and realize that I can still function - not only function but contribute and maybe even flourish - has felt almost miraculous.  I'm so grateful to have this opportunity.  It feels so good.

I also have to say this.

I'm grateful I'm safe.  I'm grateful my son is safe.

In the past two weeks, hundreds of people have been shot and killed, including  49 innocent souls in one night in Orlando.  Parents have had their worst nightmares broadcast around the world and have been publicly shamed for being human and for life happening in the blink of an eye.  The good people of my beautiful state have lost their homes, their belongings, and, some of them, their lives to floods, and their needs seem endless.  In the past four days, I have learned of two young people I know personally - one, a former student only twelve years old, and the other, a friend's daughter, fifteen - who took someone else's prescription medication on purpose and both are now in psychiatric facilities.

Life.

This world.

I don't know what to say or do about these tragedies.  I have struggled with trying to find a way to be useful, to somehow do my part to help all the pain and need.

After the shooting in Orlando, I reached out online, asking, "What do we do?"  I was speaking about gun culture, and how I feel helpless to even speak about it, much less contribute something positive, but I feel the same helplessness in regards to the emergency in West Virginia, the young people who are so full of pain, just everything...  I feel paralyzed by all the sadness and suffering.

My friends online offered great advice - educate, keep speaking out, continue to reach out to others.  One friend, though, said this: "Choose to believe you live in a peaceful world."

Eh?

How will that change the gun culture?  How will that help the flood victims?  How will that help desperate young people?  Or parents who lose their children?

I asked, in a roundabout way, and she clarified her meaning, which was "It's the concept that what you think about expands.  If your focus is one of fear and hatred, more things for you to fear and hate will be part of your reality."

It took me awhile.  I mean, even if I focus on love and peace, both of which I truly believe in, the bad stuff of the world doesn't go away, right?  My focusing on the good still hasn't helped anyone.

Except... myself.

And there, I realized, was the crux of the biscuit she was serving up.

Maybe right now I can't help others.

But I can help myself.

It's that damn simple.

Not always easy.  But simple.

MY focus needs to be what will help me.  That, in turn, will help my son, who is the most important person to me.  When I'm okay, he's more likely to be okay.  He's my mirror.  He does what I do.  It's the truth.

And when I'm okay, and my son's okay, I'm more likely to be able to help the situations that aren't okay.

It's that damn simple.

So I continue to brush away the dirt, bit by bit.

Until I'm okay.

Until I'm better.

Until I'm good.  So good that I have enough for others and am able to give it to them.