Can you feel it right now?

If you are an empath

or someone who feels things deep in your core

or are someone that loves someone that is being marginalized by society

or are someone who is having your rights threatened

or you are someone that just cares about other humans,

right now is a literal dumpster fire.

Everywhere we look right now we can find heartbreak

and misery

and dashed hopes

and fears

and broken hearts

and people ready to give up.

And here I am, finding myself wanting to quit too.

Sometimes I want to walk away from it all.

I want to take the people I care most about and run away to some secret hidden deserted island and just live out the rest of our days there - living off the land.

No phones. No internet. No news. No politics. No ugliness. No dark sides of human nature.

Other times I want to run straight into the fire and fight to my core for what I believe is right and just and decent. I want to yell and scream and fully embody Ruth from Ozark in that scene from Season 4. (You know the one.)

Other times I want to lock myself in the bathroom and take a ridicilouly long shower where I wail and cry and grieve for all the hurts that are out there right now.

Other times I want to get lost in social media comments and try to accomplish the impossible task of changing the mind of a troll.

But I realize that my only real option right now is to find some shard of hope to hold on to.

I need to look beyond the blazes burning all around me and find some little ray of light.

Maybe it's a person holding out their hand to me, saying "I get it. I feel it all too."

Maybe it's the knowledge that we've survived other really hard times and are still standing.

Maybe it's the promise of a future where it might be better for so many.

Maybe it's the insight that not everything is bad.

Maybe it’s the belief that there are still good people in the world - people who believe in each other.

So today I'll stay.

And I’ll hold on with all my might.

I’ll hold on until it feels like I am losing my grip and then I’ll dig deep and hold on tighter.

Because hope is all we have right now.

Hope.

And each other.