Hey, you. 

It’s okay if you are feeling more tired than normal. Nothing normal has been happening for quite some time now. Wars and deathly riots are being waged all around the world, violent rhetoric has replaced awkward small talk, needless deaths upon deaths upon scrolling numbly past another, and our fearfully dark future creeps closer each second. 

It’s okay if you find it hard to speak out on all the things your soul holds dear. You might have lost your voice from fear, or worry, or unending vocality. Others may question your heart, your care, even the core of your humanity but they don’t live in your every day. They don’t see you stretched beyond your compassionate limits, desperate for more than a days worth of peace. They don’t realize the mundane that happens in the midst of world-wracking history. They don’t consider you and how you have to make ends meet, while the hatred of humanity never seems to end. 

I cannot blame your quiet or your need for the overwhelm to fade. I will not tell you that it isn’t okay to hide within yourself and sink your nails into the last bit of hope you have. We are losing ourselves to the ravenous feed and sacrificing any we don’t know for its sake. We spend more time and thought reflecting the screen back to ourselves than considering who is on the other side of ours. 

So, to you, whose heart has been wrung out, over and over, and over again… set what you must aside and tend to you. The world is rife with screaming outrage, but it’s still okay to be silent while you right yourself. It is okay to walk in the world and step away from the screaming of the screens. It is okay to be numb to the narcissistic need of the devices that have become our own.

We forget that not all of us were made to be hard in every waking moment. Many of us need a reprieve, we need soft, we need love, and we need more of us who care about all our human needs. You don’t have to be outraged all the time. You don’t have to be fueled and on edge. You can seek calm. You can find solace. 

So if you need, 

Rest. 

Put your phone down. Sit in the grass. Breathe in the cooling soon to be fall air. Choose to center yourself, because the world will not choose it for you. And forget those who would judge what your heart needs. We cannot all be warriors without pause, not at all times, not for every cause. After-all, we are only human. 

Those who can fight this growing lack of humanity will. It’s okay to do what you need because we need you. Please, rest.