Today has been a difficult day.
The reasons are layered.
I have been gifted more cake than a person can eat, and I have thus eaten more of it than a person should eat. Substituting real nutrition with delicious sweet baked goods has put me on the back foot.
A situation in my personal life has triggered old wounds and the echoes of past hurts have been unleashed to bounce unhelpfully off the walls of my mind. I have not yet wrangled them into their proper place.
Last night I realised I had not been paying proper attention to the tragedy of George Floyd and the cascade of rebellion that followed. I decided that today I would inform myself. Merciless heartbreak preceded my morning coffee.
How have I dealt with it? I sat in the morning sun with my coffee. I followed some antiracist accounts on Instagram. I read some articles, and bawled my eyes out. I painted a canvas black. I thought about what I could possibly write here that could maybe, somehow, in some insignificant way, help this situation. I watched a video of a terrified young black man being harrassed by police at gunpoint while his family tried to protect him, and bawled my eyes out. I briefly entered the fray of the comments section, heart racing with fury and apprehension. I went for a short walk that did not soothe me. I did some housework while singing along to Petals For Armor. I sat in the afternoon sun listening to the inane conversation drifting out of my neighbours’ kitchen window. I climbed into the sanctuary of bed at tea time, and stayed there for a few hours.
I don’t know how I will move forward. Big things can’t be solved so easily.