It seems that I’ve spent a long time angry.
Not that I’m so quick to admit it,
maybe I’d just call it emotional.
“nervy”,
“strung too tight”.
Amazingly enough most people call me calm.
And I’m glad, because I do WANT to be calm.
In a crisis, I manage to pull off clear thinking and purposeful actions.
Crisis?
I’m your person.
I can handle it.
It’s the small things that happen to me that undo me.
And the large things that happen to others that devastate me.
My emotions are in overdrive lately.
So much pain.
So much fear.
So much hatred.
Bombs being mailed to perceived political adversaries.
People shot in their own homes.
Women being beaten and murdered along with their children.
Fires roaring out of control.
Hurricanes decimating whole blocks… and the families that lived there.
Children missing.
And now a shooting in Pittsburgh, PA.
In a synagogue I walked by countless time for years.
11 people killed, others wounded, at a place that they came to in order to worship.
Killed because the shooter hated them for being Jewish.
Police officers responding were shot by the murderer.
(I will not call him ‘the gunman’, that’s too clean of a word)
Police officers were shot by the murderer,
and our President said that things might have gone differently if the people in the synagogue had been armed.
It’s a terrible thing, he says.
And I say: It’s murder.
It’s hate.
It’s the fear of ‘others’ that is preached and poured into minds searching for an outlet for their anger,
and an excuse for their powerlessness.
It’s the continuous ‘us and them’ screamed from the oily mouths that are slick with the fat of the country.
And I watched the coverage and shook with anger.
Hands trembling,
heart pounding.
Mind racing and telling me not to be angry.
Not to hate.
When I hate, love loses.
And then my husband came home and I told him>
I told him I hated those words.
Hated those actions.
And then I cried.
And realized it was grief.
Sorrow for all that has happened and all that is lost.
Grief for families still unknown,
and fear that there may be some that died today that I do know.
Hurt and sorrow and deep palpable grief.
No answers.
Only questions.
Only waiting for the change that must surely be just ahead.
Relieved to learn my anger’s true name; I’ll sit here a while and breathe.
Determine the actions I can take to put love into the world.
Enough love is possible, I must believe this; is possible to crowd the hate away.
*This post is part of the #Write31Days challenge.)
Pocket Change 