Sometimes I don’t know what to say.

Sometimes there isn’t anything I can do.

Sometimes I just have to surrender and go lay out on my back porch to stare up at the sky as clouds cover the sun and block off all the light.

I feel like the world is covered in shadows.

Every day, I read something that breaks my heart. I barely get a chance to breathe before something else happens that knocks me back down and makes me cry.

I only follow positive people on Twitter, but those positive people are also the globally aware people. The politically aware people. The conscious people. So, I shouldn’t really be surprised when sometimes my feed is completely consumed by pain and problems.

I’ll admit to you that sometimes I wish I only followed people who posted pictures of their dogs.

This morning was like any other morning. I was lost in thought and worry and plans when I got on Twitter. I was expecting those puppy pictures, but found something far more tragic.

I’m not even sure there’s a word for how horrible it is.

There was a shooting in Virginia where two journalists were shot and killed and the person that was being interviewed on live broadcast was shot and hospitalized.

And my entire day stopped.

My entire concept of what was important and what wasn’t suddenly shifted.

All I could do was light a candle and pray.

And explain to my mom why I was crying, which made her start crying with me.

What I read online makes me cry a lot. I follow every shooting and tragedy I hear about, wanting to see justice done.

The Tweet that first got my attention read, “The color of the shooter will determine how the story is reported,” or something like that. And that made me click that person’s profile to find out what had happened. And I went down the rabbit hole, where I’m still lost even as I type this.

That Tweet is true.

That Tweet is so true it hurts.

But it all hurts.

The whole situation hurts.

The shooting. The deaths. The hurt. It hurts!

I’m not sure what any single one of us can do about what happened this morning. Or last week. Or the week before that. Or last month. Or last year.

Or tomorrow.

All I can do is hope.

I can hope for a better tomorrow. I can hope for justice, and I can hope that it will quickly be followed by peace.

All I can do is hope that you’ll light a candle for the world today, just like I did. All I can do is hope that you’ll set aside your worries about your student loans, like I did, to go hug your mom or dad or husband or wife or best friend or dog.

All I can hope is that we’ll start realizing what’s important and what isn’t.

I can only hope.

So I hope for peace.

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Relephant:

Why I no longer watch the news & what I do instead.

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Author: Stacy Porter

Editor: Toby Israel

Photos: Author’s Own //