because I dont know what else to do

I am writing. because I don’t know what else to do. In hopes that I can add my voice on a platform different than a status or tweet. In hopes I can calm the storm in my head.

I don’t want to make this about me. I am a white woman. I have enjoyed the privilege of being white my whole life. I do not walk outside my front door and have to worry whether I will return again. But I have shed too many tears in these last few days, in these last months. To ever be the same again.

I do not need to recount the atrocities that have taken place. You know what they are. The sadness that comes from knowing these violences is unprecedented for me. I hope, in a way, that they are unprecedented for you too.

I am watching as day by day, my country is torn apart. It is ripped open, we are divided farther and farther by a chasm. It is hard to see the other side. Democrat vs. Republican. White vs. Black. Christian vs. Muslim. I see people vs. people and I hurt for it. I believe that the videos I saw, of warfare in Dallas, does not have one cause. We are suffering from a perfect storm of history, of growing pains, of politics, of fear. I fear for the fear we have let absorb us and change us. The United States has not had a war fought on our soil since 1865. I believe that statement is no longer true. What is war, if not blood on the streets, if not pools of blood in bathrooms, if not snipers hitting targets from above? What is war if not misunderstandings, if not fear, if not media making money off of our shock and horror.

Today, I am crying for my black and brown brothers and sisters who must be crying more than I, who must look at their baby brothers and have to worry if they will live to see adulthood, for I do not. Today I am aching for my generation, who will wear scars of violence on our hearts for the rest of our days. Today I worry if the life of security I have always taken advantage of, always assumed would be there, may one day, not be. I never want my feet to be steeped in blood. But I fear they already are.

So, because I don’t know what else to do: I am going to talk. I am going to encourage conversation around black lives matter, about gun laws, about changing the system to ensure that our screams are heard. Mostly, though, I am going to love. I am going to love my friends and my family and those in between, I am going to continue to revel in gratitude, in wonder that I am here. living. I have a gift. I am compelled to believe that love with always win. Because without that, there may be no hope.