I feel like I’ve been walking under water this week and, as a result, I’ve been far from the best version of myself. With the events of the past few days in Paris and Beirut, and the resulting refugee backlash, it’s hard to feel like I have a right to be anything but grateful for all that I have. Which begs the question: how do you adjust to or accept the reality of the world we’re faced with without losing sight of yourself?

This is something I talk about quite a bit with a good friend of mine, as we both work at a homeless shelter and, as such, we are constantly meeting new people who are facing hardships we can only ever imagine. I hear stories everyday that both horrify and inspire me from people who are often fighting to have their most basic needs met. With that said,  it can be hard to reconcile how grateful I am for what I have, with how overwhelmed or sad I can feel with things in my own life. It’s this weird cyclical thing: sadness for the state of things beyond my control being fed by a self-centered feeling of being utterly ineffectual and compounded by a guilt that I’m not mary-freaking-sunshine ninety percent of the time.  Continue reading →