The just be mentality I relished in has somehow morphed into a manic energy.

Cleaning is a major outlet for said energy. I don’t sit still for very long, in any situation for that matter, so doing anything physical helps me to release it out into the ethos.

Gardening is a new favorite hobby. Digging in the dirt and exploring what’s underneath and natural is just in my blood. I’ve taught my daughter to collect objects found in the natural world just like I did when I was a kid. Rocks are our chosen menagerie and bugs are not something to be scared of.

But the manic energy penitrates me much deeper and lingers until it festers.

I’m fighting my own demons every minute of every day, trying to do better and be better.

Some of these demons are tiny and insignificant.

But something tiny, is in fact, significant. It can impact the world, like the butterfly effect.

A tiny crack in a dam over time can snake its way into catastrophic devastation for the dam.

So I know that negative ways of thinking can harm the vessel. And with time hardens the heart.

As I battle my own demons, the world seems to be battling their own all at once, in real time, and in technicolor.

The social economic circumstances that people are born into, with a layer of the global pandemic on top of that, and continued discrimination as the cherry on top since the countries inception weighs heavy and pushes people to the breaking point.

In my years so far on this earth I have learned to humble myself, for I have been wrong countless times. To reflect on the privileges I was born into, and how those privileges have impacted my life.

Self reflection has taken me years to accomplish, and the process is still continuing and in motion.

And there’s really no end to learning and discovery.

The death of my girls has opened my heart and mind to a level of grief previously unknown before.

I try and think about them every day. Some days I just shut down, and don’t feel anything at all.

But shutting down doesn’t change anything. Nothing gets accomplished.

I don’t need to accomplish something every day, but I still should be engaged.

The grief that’s now a part of who I am, that reaches every atom of my body. Shouldering it, reflecting it in my eyes, manifested in my energy.

I can’t imagine carrying that grief into generation after generation. Being born with it, and having no say in the matter.

And if that isn’t enough, being told that the grief/racism/discrimination isn’t real. It doesn’t exist.

Gaslighted to shut people up.

That realization propels and catapults me into the arms of knowledge and learning as much as I can.

To listen with my heart.

Not to judge another person’s experiences based upon my own.

There is no more time to be complacent with injustice. People have had enough.

It’s time to wake up.

BlackLivesMatter.