Burn Out

I am overwhelmed. I am a hollowed out shell. On my chest is a weight like the oceans of the world. Pressing down, drowning me. It has been three days since the shooting in Uvalde. Thirteen Days since the shooting in Buffalo.Four years since the shooting in Parkland, Five years since the Vegas shooting. Ten years since Sandy Hook. I am tired.

Tired of cisgender men somehow thinking their feelings are worth more than other people’s lives. Tired of the hand wringing and back and forth from politicians who take money from the NRA to keep their positions in power.Tired of the NRA targeting young men to purchase assault weapons.

Tired of seeing senseless violence and thinking, when I go into a grocery store, “Am I next?” When I go to my place of worship and see my sisters there, “Will they be next?”. Wondering if I should take a self defense class and harden myself, my world view, live in fear for some next unknowable white supremacist junkie who wants to take out their fear of a changing world on innocent bystanders.

Beneath all of this, buried like a pearl at the bottom of the sea, is my empathy. What are those parents of Uvalde feeling? What were their children feeling when they were mercilessly gunned down? What were the shoppers in Buffalo feeling? What are their survivors feeling now? Why is no one else asking them how they feel? What they think? What justice they crave? Why are we all focused on the murderer who took their lives and not the victims whose lives were cut short?

I am tired. I don’t want to live in a world where I can’t relish seeing the grocery store clerk at my local grocer. Feel community and connection in my place of worship. Smile at some children playing at a park and living their joy for those brief, fleeting, moments they have them. I will not let these murderers, these hate-filled bigots and chaos addicts dictate my emotions; my life.I refuse to live in a world where I cannot feel or express joy, or a life consumed by fear and hatred and malice.

As a witch, after knowing oneself, is the ability to manipulate and shape reality around our wishes. I will cultivate this skill. I will live my life so warmly, so lovingly, so brightly, that it will fill me and everyone around me with compassion, profound respect, and grace. This is the future I choose for myself. This is my rebellion against all who seek to curb my empathy and temper it with fear. This is my call to arms: Live graciously, live warmly, live brightly.

It is the only way we can beat back the darkness.

Happy Casting,

Lilah