How Are You Handling This? (Because I’m Having a Little Trouble With It)

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.

You Didn’t Do It Wrong. You Just Loved Big (A Letter to the Ones Who Keep Loving Anyway)

I was scrolling through the 'gram the other day when a video stopped me cold.
The person speaking was calm, certain, almost clinical in their delivery.
They said love is only real when it’s reciprocated 100 percent.

And… that made me feel sad.

I sat with it. Turned it over in my heart like a stone in my pocket.
And it still didn’t quite resonate.

Maybe (likely) they were speaking from personal grief, from the hard kind of love.
And maybe that’s their truth.
Maybe that’s their protection spell, born from pain.
But it’s not the whole truth.

Maybe they’d lived through the ache of one-sidedness and finally, finally, found the sweet kind.
I’m glad for them, if that’s true.
But love? Love isn’t so easily boxed.

It doesn’t arrive neatly wrapped, no matter what the movies say.
It’s messy. Complicated. Sometimes confusing.
But that doesn’t make it less real.

Love can be hard and still holy.
It can be sad and still true.

Love is the wildest truth wrapped in gentleness.
It’s the ache in your chest when someone else laughs,
the way your breath catches when they’re in pain.
It’s not always sweet. Sometimes it’s work, sometimes it’s weather.
But always, it’s wanting good for someone even when you get nothing back.

Love is letting go and holding on, all at once.
It’s saying “I’m here” without needing words.
It’s sitting in silence with someone who doesn’t know how to speak their hurt.
It’s staying up late to finish their dream when they’re too tired to keep going
(anyone want to help finish a book or two?).
It’s a choice, a feeling, a fire, and a forever, if you let it be.

Love doesn’t always come wrapped in symmetry.
It doesn’t always arrive in matching boxes, labeled “given” and “received.”
Sometimes it gives without return.
It pours out, even when the cup stays empty.
That doesn’t make it less real.

Sometimes love is heartbreakingly one-sided. Still love.
Sometimes it’s memory. Still love.
Sometimes it’s in the waiting, the hoping, the letting go. Still, somehow, love.

Because love…

It’s the mother who never stops checking the porch light.
It’s the friend who forgives before you say sorry.
It’s the “I made this for you” with no expectation you’ll like it.
It’s Calvin’s “Good job.”
(Did you read the book yet? You should — you’ll get it.)
It’s 80-40 forever.

Love can be mutual.
It should be, in the healthiest forms.
But it doesn’t disappear just because the other person doesn’t, or can’t, give it back.

Love changes shape.
It aches.
It learns boundaries.
But it remains.

And if you’ve loved like that — across galaxies, through grief, through silence —
you didn’t do it wrong.

You just loved big.

And honestly?
That’s the bravest thing there is.

A Journal Prompt (for those who’ve loved big):
When have you loved without guarantee?
What did it teach you about yourself, not just the other person?

Invitation to readers:
If this stirred something in you… you’re not alone.
Leave a comment, share this with someone who needs it,
or just sit with it quietly.

Love doesn’t always ask for action.
Sometimes it just asks to be witnessed.