I went to work with kiddos and horses. I came home, opened the computer and found this, “Another day, another mass shooting,” at a Florida Yoga Studio! . I really have no words left to describe the grief and horror I feel inside. The truth is, I’m really not okay.

All I can say is that every day, almost every hour, my heart cracks a bit wider. I can’t stay away from the news. I won’t turn my head away. My ancestors shared with me the stories of those who did. I heard these stories my entire life. I knew it was not “safe” and I know the end result of looking away.

I won’t pull a spiritual bypass when my fellow country men/women are actively targeted and murdered. I will shout to the hilltops until someone hears…”THIS IS NOT RIGHT!” Maybe this is so “the light can get in…” as they say, but the grief and PTSD is palpable in all of us. Twelve of our leaders are targeted for assassination and they call it a “hoax,” until clearly it was not, yet they still found a way to twist the truth.

To have this happen anywhere, let alone in a places of sanctuary, healing and comfort-AGAIN-is just beyond my comprehension. If you vote (R) in my mind you’re saying, “His hate and fear are okay with me.” My Republican grandfather and grandmother would be yelling just as loudly as I am, and would have distanced from the party of Trump, as other Republicans with an ounce of compassion and common sense have done. Thank you for that. Thank you for seeing the truth and the consequences of this man’s agenda and making a choice with a moral compass.

I have no problem with political discourse. I won’t always agree with the other side and don’t, but that is Democracy in action. It is a civil right to discourse, in an attempt to find the place of solution. The end result isn’t always what the other party hoped for, but this, what we are currently living through, this is not Democracy folks. The checks and balances are gone, in service to extremist agendas and money.

I’m sorry, if that offends some of you, but that’s my truth. He knows exactly what he is doing. They know exactly what they are doing. In a desperate attempt to hold on to power, they can find nothing to run on except fear of difference and outright lies and manipulation. That terrifies me more than his words. The (R) party is silent which in my book is an act of complicit behavior and yes, bordering on tearing at the fabric of our Constitution.

I’m going back up to the horses to shed some tears. My prayers to all us who have been put in his “cross-hairs” and the families who have lived in fear, suffered terror and trauma and those who have suffered the loss of loved ones as a result.

WE are not okay today.