DELIGHTED OR DISTURBED, THAT IS THE QUESTION
I’ve wanted to write for a
while now (apologies for the utter silence) and focus on the ‘delighted.’ But I
have to be honest, of late, I’ve felt only disturbed… or shall I say, there is
far too much disturbing stuff out there and finding the light amongst the dark,
has not been easy!
Between the gut wrenching
tragedy in Las Vegas, America’s blindness to its gun problem (HOUSTON, YOU HAVE
A PROBLEM), Mother Nature showing us who is really in charge, POTUS being his
usual pigheaded self (oh, Harvey Weinstein you can join that list), AND a bout of insomnia, (hmmm, I wonder why) well, I’ve
felt anything but sunny. You know when it’s bad when your 7-year old looks at
you every morning and says, ‘Please say you slept well, Mommy?’ I’m confident
that the King wants his old mother back and STAT.
At the moment, the King looks at me dubiously when I stumble out of my room, my hair like something out of
a storm (in the 70’s), my face smushed with pillow lines and that eye squint that
says, 'Please God don’t let it be morning, not yet!' He now politely (with
a tinge of fear) looks at me and says, "I think you should make your coffee now." Not to mention, he can obviously tell that my general demeanor has
been a bit different of late thanks to world events (and my lack of shut eye) and he's secretly hoping it will go back to normal.
So what is there to do? For me,
it kind of feels like the five stages of grief (there really
should be 7 or 8 even… grief has way too many layers). I start the week admittedly
wearing a cloak of anger and ranting on Facebook about the stupidity of man (ahem, the GOP)… which may feel good on some
level, but I quickly realize that I'm doing absolutely nothing to change things… So then I sign a few petitions, promise to join an anti-gun group, and finally end
up a few days later, on a profound hunt for hope purely so that I don’t spike
my morning coffee with Xanax and end up asleep on a bench outside my son’s
school. See, I didn’t say it was pretty. Oh, along the way, I also 'de-friend' a few people cause darn it, I've got power and I'm going to wield it.
I suppose that is also where the
internet comes in handy. There is a litany of feel good videos that allow one
to avoid life, procrastinate to no end (um, you're on deadline, woman!), and make one realize that on some
level, there is stuff to be hopeful for. Be it animal videos where a duck and a
dog are best friends, some clip from Ellen when she gets Wal-Mart to cough up 30,
4-year college scholarships, or a school where the teachers walk their under privileged kids
home every day (otherwise, they’d have to walk alone), it’s out there.
And you find your peaceful centre (sort of) and
tell yourself that despite the country of your birth trying to speed up its whole ‘going to hell in a hand basket death wish,’ life isn’t so bad.
This of course is also where
the King comes in. No matter what is happening in the world, ones child is not
only ignorant of it (unless he catches the word 'bomb' on talk radio and that opens up a really fun discussion about life. NOT), but no matter what, he is usually focused on the glorious minutiae of life. So your day soon turns into, “Mommy look at the magnet train I built; I'm asking Santa to bring me a dog (um... sh*t); Do you like the fangs on the cobra I
drew? Can I just eat cheese for breakfast? And, let’s watch Dinotrucks
together and I can show you who all the baddies are (Oh, I know who the baddies
are my darling, trust me).
This is the beauty of children. You can’t
wallow. You don’t have time for it, and furthermore, they’ll spot the good, the
beautiful, the exciting (to them) and make darn sure you know about it. Which I suppose is a nice
place to be. You are still aware of the disturbed, you know it is out there, but
it’s far more pleasant to... well, be delighted.