I’ll be lighter tomorrow.

I’m sure you probably know by now that I’m sensitive.  You may even have an inkling that I’m more sensitive than most.  I’m even convinced that I feel emotions ten-fold compared to the normal human being.  I used to be embarrassed about it, but now I’m starting to understand it a little more and am okay with it.  I know I can’t watch the news or read certain stories, or even watch certain movies.  If I do, either I crawl into a dark hole and cry myself to sleep, or my anxiety goes through the roof and I think we’re all going to die.  Both are such joys!  But because of this part of me, I haven’t been able to face the news of Japan.  It is all beyond imaginable.  I know if I see the extent of the damage and know the total lives lost, I might just stop breathing.  Thursday night, the night before our trip, Tim and I happened to be up to catch the 11:00 news…which was only a half-hour or so after the earthquake hit Japan, and minutes after the tsunami began it’s destruction.  Fortunately, Tim’s Aunt (who, like his mom, is from Japan) happened to be visiting his mom in L.A., so we knew she was safe.  And we haven’t heard otherwise about the rest of her family, so we’re assuming they’re okay.  But I went to bed that night with a heavy heart for Japan; and once asleep, I dreamt that our house was flooding and Took was lost.  The next day as we headed to the mountains, we found out California had a tsunami warning and people were starting to evacuate south of us and in the most northern parts of the state (we live less than 10 miles from the ocean, but we were not assumed to be at risk).  Every time we flipped to a news station on the radio during our drive, they were talking about Japan and I had to change it.  Later that night, our hotel was only a few feet from a strong river, creating constant white noise of water rushing.  I fell asleep to silent panic attacks of the river rising and consuming us, followed by more nightmares of tsunamis.  (Yes, I am a mess.)  I avoided it the rest of the weekend, and even though Tim didn’t want to, he did it for my sake as well.  I seriously don’t know how he puts up with me.

I realize this makes me sound crazy (or at the very least that I should be considering some serious meds), and there are people out there who would shun me for not keeping up with the current events.  But I’m okay with living in the dark.  The sadness I feel for fellow humans and their losses or deaths, is overwhelming to me.  So avoiding it makes my days livable.  I am up-to-date on the important things, and will always manage to find out what’s happening anyway.  I want to clarify that I’m not pretending it didn’t happen, I’m very aware of what’s happened and the amount of lives lost….I just tend to avoid the media coverage of events for my own sanity.  I don’t think I’ve always been like this…I think it’s just gotten worse this past year after everything I’ve gone through.  There are times where I wonder why the hell I want to try to have a kid so badly just to raise it in this world.  It’s scary as shit out there.

I’m not doing so well at that whole keeping-it-light thing, am I?  I need to work on that.  Next time, I swear.

But for now I’m going to keep Japan in my thoughts and in my version of prayers.  I hope you will, too.

If you’d like to donate to the relief efforts in Japan and the Pacific, please visit this link at the American Red Cross.  For more information on how the Red Cross helps, please click here.