For 'Troubled Times'

It's been a heavy week. I won't list the events that have made the world seem beyond repair, because really, the stuff I'm going to talk about could apply to any number of weeks that have been characterised by hate, violence and fear. But by Wednesday, I was overwhelmed. I hadn't slept for more than 5 hours a night for nearly a week, and everything felt big and crushing and irreparable. My to-do list looked impossible, tears got stuck in my throat as I marched up the hill to a university I cursed myself for not being good enough for. Earlier this week, I tweeted something I should have reminded myself of, that your heart can be wholly with people suffering in tragedy without you having to watch it unfold through headlines and clips on social media. Obviously we need to stay informed about global issues, and we should definitely try to be active in raising awareness of them. But there's no benefit in digesting a catastrophe minute by minute as it churns out horrifying pictures, rumours and false accounts. Take yourself away, come back the next morning and read the articles when they hold only facts and a hint of closure. Most of my angst this week could have been saved if I had remembered to do that. Because all it takes to put you into a downward spiral is a few stumbles on the edge until you lose your balance. Money worries and a fear of failure are put into perspective by the deadliest mass shooting in modern history. But when you see the mass reactions to this event and no one has the energy to fight for a change in the law because it seems so hopeless with the current leaders, that hopelessness can be infectious. Suddenly you feel like you can't do it anymore, because the world can't either.

You feel like you're waking up in a world that's different from the one you fell asleep in. But really it's the accumulation of a thousand realisations, a thousand small tragedies, a thousand 'why?'s, all of them hitting you at once. I remember my mum telling me that J K Rowling had to have her name like that on her books because publishers thought it would sell better if it was assumed she was male. The twisted disappointment I felt at that first revelation that sexism was a thing has never gone away, it's just become less surprising. That's how it is, headlines and comments twist tighter around you, becoming less and less of a shock, until one day you wake up to a horrific Monday morning headline, and instead of jumping up ready to act, you think: 'yeah. That sounds like our world'. A mass shooting isn't out of the blue if you've been paying attention. It's just the tip of an iceberg holding every twisted thought and rashly held belief beneath the water. 

It's a hard thing to stomach, that fall from grace, or slap in the face, when you realise the world isn't as great as you thought it was. But really that's our blessing and our privilege. I was able to believe that the world wasn't sexist and racist and corrupt and poverty stricken because as a 7 year old, my world wasn't. I've always been lucky enough to only suffer secondhand. I've always been lucky enough to have someone calling to check on me if there's been an incident nearby. I've always been lucky enough to watch from the outside, to have the choice to walk away from the screen throwing up new images of devastation with every passing second.

Sometimes it's hard to get the perspective you need, to remind yourself that the world's problems are not yours alone. If you take your eyes off the headlines, away from those in power and those desperate to have it, there are good people everywhere. And you need to remind yourself of that. Because you wouldn't ever find the motivation to fix a leaky tap if you thought the whole house was ruined. And you won't find the strength to put out a fire, if you believe the whole world is ablaze.

If you've felt suffocated by everything you can't fix this week, I hope you had someone remind you that a lot of human nature doesn't need fixing. This weekend I took a train to London. It was Saturday evening so it was packed and rowdy and I just barely heard the guard's announcements. 'I know I've got a busy train here today - stay safe and look after each other'. Even over the tannoy, you could really tell she meant it. And in 'troubled times', I've always had someone like that guard to turn on a flickering light when I've felt stuck in the dark. It's a really small improvement from feeling completely helpless, but it will do for this week. Next week we can start changing the world again.

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