A Million Little Things

In the wake of a bitterly cold weekend with multiple family and friend gatherings, I found myself laid out on the couch with a cup of tea, nursing what I presume is the beginning of a chest cold, watching the Democratic debates.

My head spinning mindful of all there is to be concerned about both in our country and our global home, it became overwhelming. 

Just hourly wages, climate change, affordable college education, accessible healthcare, immigration reform, personal privacy measures, security and protection abroad, wealth domination...it becomes mind boggling and exhausting trying to prioritize the issues that matter most, while implementing solutions that are realistic and sustainable.

Holding my English Breakfast tea, wrapped in an afghan with fuzzy socks, I thought about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.   It seems to me that he knew what mattered deeply to him and what he wanted to leave behind...a world better than when he arrived.

As a wife and a mother circling my home doing the same routine tasks of laundry folding, grocery shopping, meal planning, homework supervising, activity chauffeuring and a million little things...it's hard to know how I'm leaving a meaningful foot print.  I'm certainly not affecting public policy, writing legislation, organizing grassroots movements, conducting protests, inventing innovative technology, reducing environmental pollution...no, often, I'm yelling at my kids feeling like I'm spinning my wheels.

Until I start thinking about the small sorrows, fears, places of uncertainty that I find myself with my friends and then it becomes clear.

My gift is to listen and to offer a safe space reminding those I love that together, imperfect as we may be, we can do it.  Which is why the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. made me feel grateful and useful in a time where apathy and exhaustion seem to abound.

And so it strikes me, that we all have something to give...we all have a way to be "used" for good in the world.  And most likely, deep in your heart, when your ego is not front and center, you know what that gift is.  It may feel like a burden to share...but in the end, you know that you're both good at it and that it fills a need, a void, and provides a place of shelter and hope for another in this crazy world.

Our task is to do a million little things in a great way...a way that says...we are here together and we all have a responsibility to leave this place better than when we arrived.