As a continue to struggle to carve a little piece of contentment out of life for myself, I slide deeper into a dark depression. 😔 Last year, I made a very deliberate choice to not start any new relationships. 😒 I knew I wouldn't have enough of myself to give to another person and people who already know me, know to leave me be when I'm feeling anti-social (and they aren't offended by it.) 😐 Staying away from romantic situations has been a lot easier than I thought it would. 😔 Though I must confess, watching an endless amount of gay porn helped for a while but eventually, I just got even MORE depressed because I'm not a buff, gay male porn star, so that ended up being a complete and utter bust. 😶
I thought giving myself a whole year of meaningful introspection, freeing myself of cynical self-deprivation and not having to shave my pits, legs or cha-cha would make me feel empowered...but it hasn't. 😟 In fact, the world's atrocities on the innocent over the last year or so, have me taking on worry I hadn't even seen coming. 😑 I never expected to take on some much pain, hurt and heartbreak that was not squarely mine. 💔 Speaking of cha-chas, my gynecologist, who is a very well-respected, published OB-GYN, told me many years ago that she didn't want kids. I thought to myself 'What a weird choice of occupation for someone that never wanted children'. When I asked her why she felt that way, she simply said, "Why would anyone want to bring children into a world like this one?" I saw her point but I thought she was absolutely crazy. 😳 I knew then, that MY offspring would change the world. 🌎 It was my duty to create perfect children meant to make society a better place. I felt like MY gene pool was the stuff of legends...it still might be but what kind of world would I be unleashing on my mini-me(s)? I just don't know and that makes me very sad. 😞 The tears I've shed for society as whole lately, has probably been more than any other time in my entire life. Mass killings, mutilations, torture and bare-boned evil committed against our fellow human beings is almost too much to bear. 😭
Like so many others, I've wept uncontrollably at the thought of those sweet, innocent Connecticut school children gunned down like opponents of war.
*It made me immeasurably sad to know that the parents of one of 'the lost' took comfort in knowing that their fallen angel died in the arms of his favorite teacher.* Other parents took solace in knowing that their children's teacher was found huddled over her students, in an unsuccessful attempt to shield them from a barrage of bullets bursting through door of the closet they were hiding in. *Within that one horrific day, there are so many tragic stories of heroism, love and appreciation for life.* But to what end? It's really hard to get my mind around.
*I was sadly stunned when I found out that New York nanny Yoselyn Ortega had stabbed to death Leo and Lucia Krim, aged 2 and 6.* She then placed their tiny, bloodied bodies in the bathtub and sat on the bathroom floor, waiting for the mother to come home (who'd taken her 3 year old to a swim lesson), to see her gruesome work. Marina Krim, the mother, knew this "woman" for years and had been recommended to her by a trusted family friend. The Krims had even taken a family vacation to meet Yoselyn's family in the Dominican Republic. This woman wasn't a spoiled New York housewife. She was an emotionally-present parent that dotted on her children. She even wrote in a daily blog about the immense joys of raising The Krim kids. After seeing her beautiful children's slaughtered bodies, she had to be taken away on a stretcher due to shock. How can one expect this level of inexplicable evil? How does one protect their families and themselves from this type altered reality? Is prevention of this type of event even possible? I don't see how. It's not just here in this country, it's everywhere. No place is safe and that's truly petrifying.
Then there's a brave 15 year old girl named Malala Yousufzai, who was shot in the head for openly blogging that girls in Pakistan deserved an education too. *Taliban gunmen stopped a school van driving her home, got on, asked which one was Malala and shot her in the head and neck at point-blank range.* The assailants got away but Malala survived. For her protection and pristine medical care, she was transferred to a hospital in the United Kingdom. No doubt, she will grow up to be a fearless leader that can effect real change. I have no doubt her future will be bright but I just don't understand how GROWN people can be so cowardly and cruel to children. How can some have such little value for life?
I cried openly when I read the story of a brave seven year old Bangladeshi boy named "Okkhoy", that was mutilated for refusing to beg. Child, forced-begging is a real problem in Bangladesh. The gang that openly perpetrates this crime has admitted to starving kids for days, keeping them in barrels at times, to make them weak and pliable for their forced task at hand. *In the case of Okkhoy, four men had surrounded him, bound his hands and feet, cracked open his head with a brick, held him down and took a switchblade to his throat.* These monsters then sliced his chest and belly in an upside down cross. And in a final act of perverse brutality, they chopped off his penis and his right testicle. He survived. Barely. His father sobbed convulsively as he screamed to the unconscious boy laying in his lap; "Listen to me! You cannot die!" His father cries and presses down on the boy's slashed-open stomach to keep the insides from spilling out, as the two ride on a rickshaw headed to a hospital in Dhaka. If you have time, you should really read his story because it is one of true triumph. Triumph aside, it's also so sad that someone so young should be tested with such grotesque evil.
There are literally dozens of other similar stories like these floating in my head.
I guess I've decided to be an avid reader of current events, in a bad, bad world. 
Knowing this stuff gets me down but keeps me honest. I'm pretty intelligent but I just don't understand this world. Perhaps not knowing is protection from that which I cannot mentally handle. 
I keep saying to myself; "This all has to make sense somehow, it just has to but maybe I'm not emotionally equipped to know." Maybe my head would spontaneously explode if I suddenly understood everything there is to understand about the world. Not good. I mean, who would want to be pelted with my wet, sticky brain matter? 
Sometimes, the actions of mankind are elusive at best but maybe that's a good thing. One of the few things I find some comfort in, is that I believe that we are all connected, to each other and to The Universe. In some weird way, we're all one with every living thing in The Cosmos. 
Maybe the evil that men do is meant to teach us something powerful about each other. 
I believe in God, I believe in evil and absent of severe mental illness, I also believe in the power of free will. We can't intentionally make this world hell on earth and then ask God to pull us out of our self-created suffering, we should be responsible for doing that ourselves. I mean really, that's the very least we can do. 
*Author's Note*: The blue sentences are live links to the stories above. I encourage you to put aside some time to read them and discuss them with a loved one. Our shared repsonsibilty as a society is being educated, aware and informed about those around us. After all, we are all connected. Remember?
