Turn it off

40 B4 40
11 days to go


Stop. Showing. Blood on the sidewalks.

Today is the kind of day where we hear the initial report, select our own personal & private reactions, and then go home to watch and re-watch the news.  We do a quick inventory of who might be involved and then we call/text/email/Tweet/Facebook/Safeandwell.org/Googlepersonfinder our friends to see if we can get a tiny confirmation that all are OK, that our people are safe and sound.  We check and re-check to see if there's new info.

We do not turn it off.

We watch the same gentleman fall mid-stride over and over and over again.  We hear the eyewitness accounts and we are glued to the running commentary.  We listen to the screaming soundtrack and we're obsessed with the wobbly cellphone footage.  We watch the count of the injured and lost creep ever upwards. We hang on every bit of new information as though it will reverse and undo what's happened here today.

Turn it off.

Turn it off and love on your loved ones.  Sit closer together.  Open that bottle of wine that you've been saving for a special occasion.  Check in.  Say I love you.  Remind each other how very valuable these friendships and relationships and loves truly are to you.  Listen instead to the sound of your own story and your own strength.  Watch instead the snow fall and the sun set.

Do not re-live and re-watch the blood on the sidewalks.

Turn it off.