Taking part in the Ann Dee Ellis 8-Minute Memoir Writing Challenge. This is Day Forty-Five.

There is much in the world lately to be scared of…and then I stop and I wonder if that’s just where the lens is focused. Sure, US politics are a mess and the tide of nationalism is not a good worldwide trend. I also know that we care more and have more awareness of things that at any time in history. We work to help others, we work for hurricane relief, clean drinking water, vaccinations of preventable diseases (hell yes, I mean that). The world isn’t an awful place. But it can be. There is suffering and sorrow, and if I think about it too much I become paralyzed in my inability to do anything about it.

So I try and think about what I can do. Besides give money (which I try and do but which ends up being woefully small drops in a very big ocean) what can I do in my sphere to contribute in a way that helps somehow, somewhere? That’s a scary, existential question. For me, it means I am moving the pieces around in my head and in my life to go back to school and finally finish my graduate degree. I’m not sure exactly what that will look like, or where it will be, or even exactly in what, but it will be service oriented. I have a lose idea of what I want to do, but for now, that’s just for me to be mulling over.