How Are You Handling This? (Because I’m Having a Little Trouble With It)
Some days feel heavy in ways we can’t explain. If you’ve been struggling with the weight of the world lately, this soft and honest reflection is for you. A reminder that even in sharp times, we can still choose to be soft and to offer each other a place to land.
I read something recently that cracked something open in me.
It was fierce and honest and aching. A raw outpouring from artist Mary Engelbreit about the cruelty we’ve witnessed in recent years, the kind that doesn’t just harm bodies and rights, but wrecks relationships, rewrites truth, and shatters the fragile trust we once had in neighbors, friends, even family. The kind of cruelty that slithers out from under a rock and doesn’t even bother to hide anymore.
She asked a question at the end:
“How are you handling this? Because I’m having a little trouble with it.”
And I thought … Me too.
Me too, Mary.
Me too, everyone who’s lost sleep, or lost a friend, or lost faith in the goodness of the people around them.
Me too, if you’ve ever felt like you’re screaming into the void while the world shrugs and scrolls on.
The truth is, we are living in a time where decency has to be defended out loud, again and again.
Where lies wear suits and smile on TV.
Where cruelty isn’t just tolerated, it’s rewarded. Celebrated.
And it’s exhausting.
It’s disorienting.
It’s enough to make even the most hopeful among us spiral.
But here’s what I’m holding onto, and maybe it will help you too:
We are not powerless.
We can’t undo the harm that’s been done, but we can name it. We can refuse to normalize it. We can stand in small circles of care and say, Not here. Not on my watch.
We can tell the truth in storybook form. We can whisper wisdom to children and slip hope into their hands disguised as picture books and printable adventures. We can light tiny fires in the darkness and say, this is what love looks like. This is how we rise.
So if you’re having a little trouble handling all this too...
If you’re weary, or angry, or heartsick,
Come sit by me for a while.
I wrote some books for moments like this.
Not political books.
Not protest signs.
But soft places to land.
Stories that remind us who we are, what matters, and why we keep going.
🌿 Frances the Firefly – for anyone who believes that wild things deserve to stay free.
🪶 Calvin and the Coyote – for the ones who carry memory like a lantern through the dark.
🦝 The Dirty, Stinkin’, Rotten Raccoon – for every misunderstood soul who just needs someone to look a little closer.
These books aren’t solutions, but they are something.
A hand held out.
A little light left on.
A story that says: I see you. You’re not alone.
And neither am I.