the grind.

I wanted to write today…I feel like I needed to write today. It was one of those “meh” kind of days where although nothing bad happened, I had the opportunity to think about things in our society that have me very concerned….I call these “grind” days, because my brain goes a little bit into overdrive as I think things through.

With each passing day, I feel more and more desensitized to the violence that I see on TV and read about online. It almost feels strange when I don’t hear about a shooting or a carjacking. I miss the time in my life where I didn’t have this constant fear. Is there anyplace now where a mass shooting CAN’T happen? There’s a part of my brain that’s on constant alert when I’m in a public place to have an exit strategy. It’s sad, and it’s exhausting.

As I’m approaching 54 in the next few weeks, I find myself thinking about the next chapter of my life….I hope that it’s in a society that becomes more respectful of each other than we are now. I look at Milo and I wonder what things will be like when he’s an adult. I hope his generation doesn’t look back on where we are now as “the good ol’ days.”

Maybe I’m dwelling on this too much today, and I’ll have a different outlook tomorrow. It’s rough when I know that the odds are very high that there will be some type of aggressive violence that will take place here in the DC area tonight, as well as many other places. I will continue to remain hopeful that we will see positive change. The day will come when some type of new technology will replace social media. I pray that this technology will promote positivity as powerfully as social media has bred negativity and conflict.

Maybe then, a lot of our existing problems will come to a “grinding” halt.