Mourning

Last night at about 11:30 p.m. I quickly reviewed the news and a horrific headline caught my attention. My 16-year-old daughter walked into my room and I scrolled down a little bit so she wouldn’t see it.

I didn’t read the story, but I was unable to let go of the headline as I crawled into bed. For a much longer time than I wanted, my mind imagined different aspects of the circumstances, and while I kept telling my mind to let go of it, I couldn’t.

I was talking to a co-worker today and somehow the conversation made it’s way to that subject. Again, I only shared the fact that the headline affected me significantly, but then I said, “I don’t think we get enough time to mourn in our culture. I think that’s what I was doing. I think I just had to sit with it for a while.”

Then, as I headed back to work, I thought about my feelings. I have been reading a lot about Carl Jung and the collective unconscious, and it almost feels like I was trying to reach it, to let the universe know how utterly devastated I was that anyone had to experience that kind of thing. It was as if I was hoping I would be able to reach the person, to be able to tell him the same.

Then, when I got home today, I found out that the Orlando shooting occurred, and I can’t help but wonder how many people are feeling that way today.