Late night thoughts

Friday, January 23, 2026, just before midnight:

I know I’m not the only one. I know we’re all feeling the weight of being alive at this time in this world. Yes, it’s heavy, cumbersome in a way that can be suffocating if you dwell on it for too long. It’s hard to know what to do, what to think, what to say, how to be.

I’ve battled depression my whole life. I recently learned it’s a side effect of C-PTSD (Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). In fact, a lot of the issues I’ve dealt with in my more than 50 years on this planet can be traced back to that same diagnosis, a diagnosis I received from a doctor who specializes in trauma-related illnesses and issues. But that’s not what’s on my mind right now, or I suppose it is because I mentioned it, but it’s not the thing that’s weighing the most on my mind right now.

I don’t know how to be in this world. I’ve spent my life mimicking what I see, trying to fit in, to be normal, but I’m not normal. I’m okay with that, truly; it’s just difficult to know how to be me when I’ve spent my entire lifetime so far pretending to be anyone else but me. So, who am I? I’m a person who feels everything intensely, like super dramatically intensely to the point where I’ve had to shut myself off completely to stay semi-sane. And even then, I’m not sure I’ve been successful.

Okay, cards on the table, this is just going to get weirder and possibly a little harder to follow because I’m just going to let it all hang out in whatever order it decides to come. So, here it goes.

Life sucks. And it doesn’t. Life is hard. And it’s not. Life is up, then it’s down. Contradictions. Opposites. Things that are different but the same. Everything is messy and confusing and, well, to be blunt, fucking frustrating, like really, REALLY, fucking frustrating.  And then I remember, I have a good life. I’m safe. I have a home, a job, food, healthcare, and people who love me. I don’t face discrimination. I’m not a visible minority. I don’t live in the United States or in some other country where you can be grabbed off the street or taken out of your home and deported to goodness knows where simply because you don’t look white enough.

And if I did live in one of those places? I’d blend in. I’m visibly Caucasian. I’ve been called half-blood before, in a joking way, because I’m not genetically Caucasian, but it’s never impacted me because, like I said before, I’ve had the privilege of passing as white. I’ve had the privilege of fitting in.

So, I’d be safe. I am safe, or as safe as a white woman living in Canada can be. But.

Yep, as always, there's a but.

But, like now, in my seemingly safe country, I feel guilty about being able to blend in and go unnoticed. I feel guilty for being safe when so many are not. Guilty for being able to walk down the street without worrying about someone shouting racial slurs. Guilty for not being faced with the constant injustice that so many people of colour face, especially in North America.

Does my guilt help anyone? No, of course not. Feeling guilty won’t save anyone, but just ignoring those feelings won’t change anything either. And as many on the other side of the equation might point out, I have the luxury of deciding to simply ignore the truth of what’s happening around me. It’s not impacting me or my family specifically. Yet. But that’s not who I am or, at least, it’s not who I want to be. I want to be the kind of person who stands up with and for others, who stands for justice and equality, for peace and love, regardless of the colour of my skin or anyone else’s.

But is that an ideal I can meet? Probably not. And that’s mortifying to me. And shameful. It feels shameful. I grew up thinking I’d be better than the people who were alive during World War II. I’ve always believed that I’d stand up for what’s right. But would I have done that? What would I have had the courage to do? What would I be able to do, IF I had the courage?

Sobering thoughts, am I right? I think somewhere in the great deep, deep of our subconscious many of us believe we have power, that we could be superheroes, like the ones we pretended to be when we were younger. But the reality is different. So, I’m back to where I started.

I don’t know what to do. And, no, I’m not putting the responsibility for figuring it out on anyone else’s shoulders because I know it’s not anyone else’s job to tell me what to do or how to think or how to be. We each must carry our own weight as best we can, making decisions we think we can live with or die for… I’m not sure.

I’m a white woman writing about feeling angsty, scared, unsure, and so on and so forth, but I feel like I don’t have the right to be feeling any of these things because far more people in the world have it much, much worse in so many ways. And that’s not new. It’s been like this since before I was born. People have always had it harder than me. Not everyone, but a great many have, for sure.

I remember many times asking about the children I saw on television, the ones who were starving, living in huts, or desperate for clean water. There were times when I couldn’t breathe just thinking about it. At one point, I thought I’d grow up and become someone who would travel to places in need to help in whatever way I could. But I didn’t.

I saw that life. I saw how hard it would be. I saw how emotionally draining it would be. I saw the difference, the stark difference, between acknowledging the reality of what life was like in other parts of the world versus what life was like here, in North America, in Canada.

And yes, I know that life isn’t perfect for all Canadians, and yet the majority or what seems like the majority, go about their lives like no one is starving, no one is homeless, no one is being abused or tortured every minute of every day somewhere on this planet (or in our own country). For some of us, we’ve had the luxury of burying our heads in the sand, living as if life really is a television show where we can focus on life’s milestones with parties and balloons, like birthdays, graduations, anniversaries, births, deaths, weddings, funerals, and so on. We only see that which pertains to us, that which fits into the world we want to believe we live in.

But what about everyone else? What about all the people who don’t have that luxury? What about them?

I don’t want to be anyone’s savior, nor could I be. I’m not powerful. I’m not brilliant. I’m not wealthy or gifted in some way that could make everything (or anything) better. I’m just a person, albeit a person who has the luxury of going back to sleep and pretending none of this is happening, at least for now, anyway.

But.

But I don’t want to.

I made that choice once before, even if it wasn’t on a fully conscious level. I made the choice to ignore what wasn’t happening to me or mine. I made the choice to focus on my life and my frivolous wants and needs. I did that.

To be clear, I don’t regret the life I’ve lived. I’m grateful for the experiences I’ve had, and I love my children more than I can put into words. And at the same time, if I could go back, maybe I would have chosen to do things differently, to live my life differently. But life doesn’t work that way. We can’t go back. We can’t fix the mistakes we made. If we could, I’d fix the mistakes I made that hurt my children.

If I could… but I can’t.

And now? Now, the world is on fire. Well, it feels that way, anyway.

People are starving. People are dying without the medical care they need. People are being raped, tortured, and murdered. People are being treated like they’re worth nothing more than a pile of dirt.

And other people? Other people, albeit not many, they’re busy profiting off people’s pain and suffering. They’re stealing money, resources, power, and they’re using it to hurt others, just because they can.

Is this different than before? No, it’s not. Life has always been this way. The difference is in the scale. The difference is that the overall scope of things has expanded, and it’s continuing to expand rapidly. And the suffering, the pain, it’s so loud now that the ones who never noticed before are finally hearing and seeing it too. It’s gotten so loud, so violent, so in-your-face disgustingly evil that you’d have to purposefully, willingly, consciously decide not to see it to continue to remain oblivious.

Life is hard. It’s always been hard. And for some, it’s been a whole heck of a lot harder than for others this whole time.

In response, my soul is screaming. It’s screaming and I don’t know what to do about it. I feel like I need to do something. I need to help. Something. Anything. But what? What can I do?

I don’t have a fortune. I live paycheque to paycheque, trying to recoup what I lost when I was unable to work.

I don’t own a company. I don’t have the money or power that usually come along with that.

I’m not a politician. I don’t have the power to effect change on that level. I don’t have a politician’s powerful voice, one that can make headway, if not outright change.

I’m not a celebrity. I don’t have fame to use to spread messages or bring people together for a cause.

I’m just me. A 55-almost-56-year-old Canadian woman with a shit ton of mental health issues, a few too many medical issues, a mishmash of vocational experience, dated educational qualifications, and a mixed bag of skillsets.

So, again, I ask, what can I do? How can I help?

The thing I do best is learn. Listen. Think. Philosophize. Love, although I’m told I can be suffocating, so that may not be a plus. I can read. I can write.

I love to write.

But, as one of the many voices inside my head is pointing out, I don’t write as eloquently or as knowledgeably as others. I just write like me, a middle-aged woman who graduated from school decades ago, remembering far less that she’d like about the proper way to express oneself using the written word.

I’m not high class. I don’t come from money. I’m not a genius. I’m just me. An average sort of bird, but with a fuck-ton of mental health issues that border on “is she sane or is she crazy” territory.

Ya. (And you can't see this, but I'm nodding my head in agreement with myself.)

Ya, so that’s where I am right now. And that’s where I’m ending this blog. No answers, just questions.

What can I do to help?

What can I do to make a positive difference in the world?

Where do I go from here?

Saturday, January 24, 2026, mid-afternoon:

Ya, okay, so the above stream-of-consciousness was written last night. I tend to be much more dramatic and much more honest in the late hours of the day or early hours of the morning. I've been called a drama queen in the past, but never truly believed it until recently. It's hard when you start realizing the harsher truths about yourself, but again, that's not what I'm writing about right now, so let's get back to it.

Now, with the dawn of a new day, I find myself once again questioning whether I should post this blog. Is it okay to do? Am I showing my privilege? Am I making things worse? Heck, do I have a right to feel the things I'm feeling and then express them aloud to the world? Or, at least, to the very few who read my blog.

I don’t know the answer or answers to any of these questions. I know what I believe or what I think. I also know that what I believe or what I think I know today could change tomorrow, next week, or next year, with the dawning of new information. I’ve always been open and eager to learn, to see different points of view. I believe it’s part of the reason we’re here, having this human experience, to learn, to grow, and to evolve through the experiences we have individually and with each other.

So, all this to say that I would never claim to have all the answers, or any of them, in fact, but what I will say is that I’m open to finding them. Or searching for them anyway. In my experience, when I think I’ve found an answer, it just leads to more questions that inevitably lead to the realization that I still don’t know the real answer to the first question I was asking.

I know my limitations. Well, I know most of them. I am still learning, after all. I know my privilege. Again, most of it, not all, because, again, I’m still learning. There’s so much I don’t know about pretty much everything, but I guess that’s not the point right now. The point is that I’m genuinely asking, without expectation of answers, what do I do now? What do we do now?

How do those of us without power come together to save our world, but not so it can go back to the way it was before 2016 or before 2025, because that was not working for everyone. I want to know how to not just save this world, but to change this world, so that it works for everyone on the planet, and not just for the people living here, but for the wildlife and the planet itself.

How do we make our world better? How do we make it equitable and soul-affirming for everyone?

How do we convince people that working together for the betterment and the equitable living of each and EVERY one of us is something that’s worth doing? How do we remind those who are acting in what many of us might deem “evil” ways to remember who they were at their core as a child. Did they want to grow up to be reprehensible villains? Likely, no they did not. So how do we remind them of their shared humanity? How do we make their hearts open? How do we make them care about people other than themselves or their inner circle?

No, as you may have already guessed, I don't have the answer. I'm asking the question because I genuinely want to know. How do we soften hard hearts, open closed minds, and calm the anger, fear, and frustration that is clouding the vision of so many?

Some may be coming from the same angry position as the evildoers, thinking they’re better than someone else because of the colour of their skin, their religion, or the amount of money in their bank accounts. How do we remind them that we’re all the same, that we’re all worthy. Full stop. No conditions. We’re all worthy of living a good, safe, happy, peaceful life. And to do so, we all must agree on this, and we all must work together to make it happen. How do we accomplish this?

And what about the people who aren’t actively doing “evil,” but who are simply standing by doing nothing, refusing to become involved for whatever reason works for them? People like me, people who've been telling themselves there's nothing they can do, and if there's nothing they can do to help, then they should avoid thinking about it because it just makes their mental health worse. Ya, like that.

I don't think our world will get better or that our world will change for the betterment of everyone until EVERYONE is involved in some way. I don't know what that looks like. I just know that each and EVERY one of us needs to acknowledge and to know in our core that we are all worthy of life regardless of anything else, regardless of skin colour, regardless of religion, regardless of economic status, regardless of geographic position, regardless of ability to work or be "productive," regardless of anything. We are all worthy. Full stop. No conditions. We need to know it. We need to feel it. We need to honour it. And we need to act accordingly.

And here I am again, left with the same questions. How can I help? What can I do? What can we do?

Thank you for listening.