Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Orlando- My Home

72 hours after the devastation we all woke to in Orlando and every where I turn there is a sadness, a heaviness, pain, devastation, bewilderment and fear. Every place I turn there is also love, solidarity, compassion, help, and strength. I see images like this:











I well up and I have knots in my stomach, a lump in my throat and I feel heartbroken. I feel exhausted and I am walking around with my head in a fog. I see images like this:













To which I well with all sorts of other emotions. I have immeasurable love and pride for my city and these big hearted people. I feel honored and humbled and the tears flow for a whole slew of other reasons. I feel so much hope and so proud of the evolution taking place. The outpouring of love in my city and I do think for many it is probably their first real public outpouring of love to the LGBT community. It moves something deep in me when I see images like this:










Knowing only hours ago Orlando wasn't even on their minds and now they are taking time to stop and mourn with us. To gather in masses and say we are with you. Your pain is our pain. Even from so far away they are not distant observers but fully participating in this horrific tragedy.

Mostly, I have heard love and support and a feeling of- I just want to help. What can I do so these families know I am with them in their grief? I know there are hateful people out there but the overarching feeling I have witnessed in my immediate community is that of I just want to be useful and compassionate. I just want to support and love my neighbors who are hurting and do it well.

I did however hear a few mentions of people who were tired of hearing it in the news constantly and they needed to feel light again, they were worn down. They were ready to laugh again. It was all too much for them. My immediate thought was there are 53 people still fighting for life in the hospital and 49 dead with countless numbers of family, partners, friends feeling what we are feeling thousands of times over. It's only been 72 hours. Aren't we all still in shock?!? I am not saying that to shame these people ... I get it...I understand the feeling. You may have thought the same thing.

My instinct is to want life to get back to "normal" to not have to see such pain and suffering. To go back 72 hours earlier where we were sitting with friends eating fish tacos, drinking margaritas, laughing, and literally having a conversation about how to raise children who love and respect all people in this world. Truly that was our conversation over watermelon margaritas on Saturday night.

That is my instinct as well, just like you, I don't want to feel the deep sorrow either. It hurts! However, I feel that my greatest act of love is to feel it all. There is a reason we are weary and exhausted and we feel like we want it to all end. Because what happened was evil, and horrible and fills us with fear and anger and questions and sadness and despair and yet,  I want to tune into what that really is. I want to call it what it is. I don't want to run. I don't want to gloss over it. I think it is appropriate to feel the horrible feelings and exhaustion and sadness. Can we slow down and  sit with the victims and their families and their friends and partners and Aunts, Uncles, and their siblings, and your neighbors and friends? Can we sit with them and mourn and grieve and not try to find the silver lining for them but just be in it with them. In our human solidarity it is all our loss, all our pain.

Our society is fast, we want instant gratification and lightning fast results, quick fixes and the media and our lives move so rapidly, it's scary. Before we have finished one thing we are already on to the next. I feel scared to allow these things in this space here. I feel we have to fight hard against this tendency so engrained in our culture. I feel that if we turn away because we can only handle so much we are missing the whole human experience... we need to be here and now in this terrible gut wrenching place and carry it all together. So we care for and honor the victims well. So they feel love and support like never before. So we evolve.

Yes, down the road do we need to speak up and change things and fight for our future. Yes! Eventually we need solutions. Yes, we are going to move forward and our lives will go on and we will celebrate Father's Day and I am so thrilled to celebrate new life at a baby shower this weekend. But, we need to feel all the feels. We need to be in solidarity. Solidarity and solutions are not the same. We need to sit in the pain and tune into it together. We need to enter into the full experience of such loss. There is no "fixing" the lives already taken. This was unspeakable and we see this evil, we feel this evil. We are with you in this pain. Let us carry each other, let us sit with each other, let us love each other well.

The task of comforter is hard and it is so much easier to tune out, numb, distract ourselves, and try and move on. I have decided that I refuse to let this just brush over me. I will sit with you on the mourning bench Orlando. Orlando, our neighborhood, our city, our state, our country, our nation, our world, our universe. I will sit.

Much Love for Our Orlando,

Lauren


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