In Green

I didn't want to write this post. I still don't.

Newtown, CT.

I won't make it political, I won't make it wordy. God, I'll even leave out the cliches. Or most of them. No promises on the swearing.

I have written about some pretty awful things in the past. Parenthood and humanity ain't all rainbows and unicorns. But, the rainbows and unicorns are what makes it worth living.

My 5-year old doesn't know what happened in Connecticut last Friday. How ... How would I even begin to explain that to her? She is scared of spiders. She cries when her boots come off in the snowbank. She's just a little kid. Just like those 20 children. She's just a little kid.

And she is my whole goddamned world. I'm hellbent on making her know that every single day. That didn't start because of Friday, either. That started when I received the call March 23, 2007 from my doctor ... pregnant.

And because she's my whole goddamned world, I have to protect it; protect her.
And that means I cannot become cynical, jaded, complacent.
I have to instead focus on the rainbows and unicorns.
I have to find them when they're buried. I have to find them when they've been overrun by everything dark and disgusting. I have to present them to my girl, my only child, in order to foster and maintain her own faith in humanity.

This country and its people are amazing. We're lucky to live here. We have nothing to be afraid of. We simply cannot live like we do.

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty. -Mahatma Gandhi