This is not the end of the world.  This is not the end of America, or you, or your family.  This is not the end of religion or love, of hope or freedom.

You are, even today, still the same person you were two days ago.  You are invaluable.  You’re amazing.

Losing hurts every time, and every time we grow.  Every defeat tempers the soul with wisdom; every hardship pickles our courage in the brine of endurance.  Be brave now, and face the world just as you have.

There is a lot of darkness out there that drags us all down and makes us forget that the tidal waves of love and positive thinking never cease to crash back onto our little beach, soaking us in happiness and trickling down to further liquify the jaded crust of despondency.

Things will be okay.

We’ll make it.

Do your best.  For yourselves, for each other, for anyone.  For everyone.

Love will never die, and your existence, one and all, is necessary to endure the ache.  We cannot take the sweet without the sour, just as happiness can’t be as fulfilling without knowing some tears.

To paraphrase Whitman’s “As I Sat Alone By Blue Ontario’s Shores:”

O I see flashing that this America is only you and me,
Its power, weapons, testimony, are you and me,
Its crimes, lies, thefts, defections, are you and me,
Its Congress is you and me, the officers, capitols, armies, ships, are you and me,
Natural and artificial are you and me,
Freedom, language, poems, employments, are you and me,
Past, present, future, are you and me.
I dare not shirk any part of myself,
Not any part of America good or bad,
Not to build for that which builds for mankind,
Not to balance ranks, complexions, creeds, and the sexes,
Not to justify science nor the march of equality,
I am for those that have never been master’d,
For men and women whose tempers have never been master’d,
For those whom laws, theories, conventions, can never master.
I am for those who walk abreast with the whole earth,
Who inaugurate one to inaugurate all.
I will not be outfaced by irrational things,
I will penetrate what it is in them that is sarcastic upon me,
I will make cities and civilisations defer to me,
This is what I have learnt from America—it is the amount, and it I teach again.

Note:  This is not nor never will be a political blog.  I simply felt like reaching out today while people settle into yet another complicated era.