Love you, Orlando.

My heart is broken in light of the horrific events in Orlando. The beautiful city that we called home up until just weeks ago was senselessly and viciously attacked. When I woke up, my first reaction was to lurch towards my phone and track down everyone I love who could have been in Orlando. When I heard back from my brother and my friends, I felt such relief. 

And that breaks my heart, because there are fifty families who woke up and did the exact same thing I did, only with a different, horrific end result. Fifty mothers and fathers and siblings and lovers who will never again see the one they love. 

We can (and will) politicize it, theorize it, categorize it. We will try to put it in perspective, try to explain it. We will place blame on guns, on religion, on sexuality, on bigotry. But none of that will help. Eventually there will be a press conference that gets to the bottom of everything. There will be an answer given for why this was done. And that, too, will help nothing. 

My gay friends are sad. My straight friends are sad. My friends who live in Orlando are scared and my friends who live across the country are scared. We live a beautiful life in a beautiful world, but sometimes instead of beauty there is darkness, and sometimes instead of life and love there is tragedy and death and hate. And when there is darkness and hate and tragedy, it affects us all. 

Sometimes it’s easy to find beauty and hope in these dark times, and sometimes it’s not. Today, for me,  it’s not. 

At times, when things like this happen, I get annoyed with the mass amounts of cheesy quotes and pictures that instantly flood social media. The MLK quotes talking about light driving out darkness seem so silly and small in light of huge tragedies. But this weekend, it was comforting to me. Because there’s something to be said for the fact that so many people just need to say something. There’s something to be said for the fact that, when we don’t know what to say or what to do, we turn towards love, because we know that somehow, that’s all that will help. 

The people in your life-call them. Tell them you love them. Virtually wrap your arms around them. Regardless of beliefs or location or sexual orientation or personal choices-call them and tell them you love them, that you stand with them. Life is short. For some, it was senselessly cut entirely too short this weekend. But you woke up today, so you still have time to love people. 

Some of my blog posts have good endings. A call to action or a lesson learned or a question, or something like that. This isn’t one of those. This is just something to say that I’m heartbroken, and if you are too, I want you to know I’m here, scared too, and loving you. 

How lucky we are to be alive today. Let’s choose to fill it with love.