Saying something and nothing at all

All news these days seems bad and sad and personal.

And here I am sitting warm and far away from everywhere the things are falling apart. Emotions and opinions forming and changing with every text/tweet/IM/update that hits closer to home, all the while switching tabs to watch the hottest new DJ cat.

No, there's never a numbness; just a feeling of helplessness at the inability to find the words or the oneness to be able to show family or friends, even those from another day, another life, another home, that I hear their pain, their fear and relief at their own close shaves.

I wouldn't dare claiming to understand; sympathy just seems noisy.

I quote a significant chunk from A Literal Girl, because she says so eloquently what I still can't:

[We] say our thoughts are with people in places we aren’t. There’s a certain futility to this. Everybody has something to say, but is it always worth saying something?

I don’t mean that people should not speak, that we should censor ourselves or limit our reactions. But when I sit down to write about this, I feel distant and impotent. I think: I should have said something sooner, I should have reacted instantly, already the time for speech of the sort I want to make has passed, already we are moving on, collectively, talking about it in new or different ways. But part of me, the part of me that doesn’t move at internet speed, that moves at human speed, is still back there, still formulating thoughts and opinions based on what I’ve seen, even if it’s secondhand, thirdhand.

The most reassuring text/note I see these days is the forlorn and whimsical x.

So x.