The Right Place In A Tough Time - Caitlin

Recently, everything just feels really hard. A lot harder than things used to feel. The thing is, I know that this year has always been hard - but now it feels like a different kind of hard. I feel like I’m constantly analyzing everything that I experience and trying to find some deep, groundbreaking meaning for it all (kind of like in all of those dystopian society YA novels), where there can be a beginning, middle, and tidy, satisfying end. I know that won’t happen, but wouldn’t it be sick if it did?

I continue to feel so lucky to be where I am right now. I feel so lucky, however, that it almost makes me angry. I don’t think that was the exact wording to describe how I feel, but it’s the closest I could find. If I were to break the emotions I have been feeling most recently down into a nice little pie chart, they would probably be happiness, sorrow, anger, and fear. I put happiness first because I want to make it very clear that, overall, I am happy! I’m happy to be where I am, happy to get to do something I love every day, happy to feel like my family and loved ones are safe, and happy about so many other things. The other emotions are present in a way that they always have been - sad for people who are suffering, angry at people who don’t care, scared for everything that the future holds - but also in a way that is new, given the current circumstances.

I have a hard time putting all of those thoughts and feelings - thoughts and feelings that I have constantly but don’t exactly know what to do with - on to paper and then sort of just leaving them there. But that’s what I’m going to do here, because I don’t really have anything else to add to them at the moment. I am, however, going to write a banging conclusion that summarizes this reflection and what I hope I communicated, because that’s my favorite part of writing a paper, so here it is:

Overall, I am in the best place, both location wise and mentally, that I could be right now. That’s not to say that everything is good and awesome and perfect, because it is very clearly not, but I feel grateful to be experiencing all of this while surrounded by people who care about me, about our community, and about doing everything they can to make things better.

~ Caitlin