How are you coping?

Personally, I am struggling.

The specific thing that is happening is that I will see things, feelings of anger and hopelessness will rise up, and it then makes it hard to concentrate, mostly on schoolwork, but other things too.

Where I am feeling it most is Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and that even a unanimous Supreme Court decision doesn't seem to be helping. Do you know how messed up something has to be for even Thomas and Alito to have a problem with it? 

And Trump told Bukele to build five more prisons.

Some people have suggested tuning out the news.

I suppose the argument in favor of that is that there probably isn't a lot I can do about some of these issues.

I have seen that enough time spent angry and hopeless can lead to people becoming hard-hearted and directing their anger at the people suffering instead of the cause of the suffering.

I still can't turn away in good conscience. I may not know if we are going to get to vote again, but if I do I want to do it with full knowledge of the reality; I wish more people had done that before.

Plus, it's not just a horrible government, but you can't see stories about them without also seeing comments from people that are terrible, and often delusional in surprising ways.

That is depressing.

I need to stay grounded.

I also really want to graduate though. I want to read books and get things done.

I will have to find my way to do that.

One thing I have thought about is whether I can get my schoolwork done before seeing any news. 

That is really hard to do. If I open a web browser to look something up, there will probably be headlines. 

If I open any social media, there will be headlines, and more of that than social interaction lately.

I haven't worked it out. 

I do know that there are not going to be Wednesday and Thursday posts this week. I don't know if that will be permanent, but I am making a push to get some schoolwork done, and that is part of my facilitating of that.

I also know that our care for each other matters. We can't lose that.

So yesterday and this morning I wrote out a bunch of cards to touch base with people, and this post is also touching base with you.

How are you doing?

Can I help?