We All Know What This Post Will Be About

I, like the rest of the United States, am trying to make sense of the madness. The unthinkable. The unimaginable. The very real. The events that happened at Sandy Hook Elementary are miles away, yet hit so close to home. Of course, I have young children. Children that will go to school very soon. Too soon now it feels like. Two days ago I couldn't wait for Kindergarten to arrive, now I'm hesitant. I know that the emotions will fade and that my optimism will return, but for today I am...hesitant...and conflicted. I'm not scared, because I can't allow my children to live their lives in fear. That would feel like some sort of victory for the shooter. But I'm hesitant to proceed as usual. I'm slower to drop my kids off at daycare, but I do it because they find joy in it. I give more thought to taking my kids to crowded places, but I do it because the stuff of childhood dreams is often found in crowded places. Maybe I do it because it keeps fear from slowly taking over. Maybe it's all just too much to process. I don't know.

And then there is the confliction. About everything, really. Is homeschooling the answer? My son's extreme social nature tells me no. My protective heart tells me maybe. Mental health. My compassion tells me that mental illness is a nasty, nasty cross to bear. However, there is never justification for the loss of innocent lives. I won't even get into gun-control issues, but I see value in both sides. Does media coverage compound the problem? The number of incidents since extensive media coverage has been the norm makes me think it certainly can't be helping. At the same time, nothing brings people together more than shared emotion/outrage/knowledge. Does social media help or hinder? Social media has been used to do some amazing, heart-warming things, which I hope is more common than the alternative, but it isn't immune to misuse. 

I do know that we will never have all the answers. That our best fixes are really just our best guesses...trying to remedy problems by predicting the actions of unpredictable beings. But what I also know is that most of us have the propensity to love and protect, to encourage and uplift, to overcome adversity and fear. For now, I prefer to put my faith in that rather than fear the unknowable.