I woke up the other morning feeling like a complete poop emoji.  I dragged myself out of bed, gulped down a cup of caffeine and forced myself to do some yoga.  I started with a 20 minute session, then upped it to a 30 minute session, then googled the 20 minute session again and did that instead.  When I was done, I got back to my bedroom to make the bed and seriously had to talk myself into NOT getting back in.

What’s wrong with me?  Why do I feel so crappy?  Is this what midlife is all about?  Is it all down hill from here?

Then it hit me.  That morning, the first thing I did when I opened my eyes was grab my phone.  Before I could even focus, there were a pile of news alerts.  It was Vegas.  Mass shooting.  I clicked open and flipped through the news pages and social media.  Of course, The Dinglenuts of the United States had already said like 7 stupid things about it.  It is horrible.  Shocking.  Maddening.  All of it.

And that my dear friends, is why I’m so freaking tired.   I don’t even live in the US, but as a Canadian we are inextricably linked to whatever happens south of the border, so we sit and watch in helpless, abject horror.

What can I do to help?  Give blood – well, I’m thousands of miles away so that won’t do any good.  Call my Congressman to lobby for Gun Control – remember, I’m Canadian.  We already have that here.

Its not just Vegas.  Its everything.  Every day, every week there is something new to worry us.  Something new clogging the news feeds that at any given time would make us shake in fear.  White supremacy?  Deadly Hurricanes?  Massive Earthquakes?  Mass Killings?  THERMONUCLEAR WAR???  See.  You want to go back to bed too.

The blessed news media does a good job of stoking the fire of worry.  The 24 hour news cycle only thrives when there is news to report, people only watch it when its titillating.  Death and destruction.  Political battles.  These are the things that the news media lives for.  Hollywood couldn’t write it better.  Its no longer Walter Cronkite keeping you objectively informed, The Fourth Estate providing the check and balance for those in power.   Its now produced entertainment with studios full of talking heads looking for ratings.

Its all so exhausting.  I just want to follow Tine Fey’s lead and Sheetcake EVERY DAY, ALL THE TIME.  Just dig into that thing like an ostrich burying my head in buttercream goodness.  I feel helpless and sheetcaking feels like the most ideal diversion, unless you want to chip and wine because for the record, I’d be ok with that too.  Otherwise what can I do?  I’m one woman in a small corner of the world with a family and a job.  I can’t drop everything to go protest every monumentally bad development that’s happening in the world right now.  Who will hear my small voice through the din?

But we have to, don’t we?  We have to stand up and say something.  March, yell, fight the bad guys.  If you do it too, then maybe our voices together can be made louder.  We have to for our families, for our kids, for our world.  Generation X hasn’t had much to fight about in our lifetime, but now we do.  Love must conquer hatred.  Peace must win over conflict.  Humanity must defeat greed.  How?  I have no idea.  But we have to try.  I’ll just start now by saying we all deserve a brighter future than the one being so poorly negotiated on our behalf.  We’ve got this.  Lets do it and I love you.