I have stayed up until nearly 2 AM this morning, again, watching a movie. That’s three since Friday. I never take the time to sit and watch a movie for myself. I never feel like I can take that much time for myself. But this last month, two months, has been so stressful and I’m not prepared for our long trip in one day and yet I couldn’t keep myself from finishing the movie I started watching. The Big Sick. I didn’t know what it was about- just that I remembered that I had wanted to see it – but it became so very moving, and real that I had to finish it. (The main character is actually a lapsed Muslim, so that was interesting to see on the big screen – you don’t see people questioning their faith often.) I have found it so cathartic to watch other people’s stories play out on the screen and to get out of my own head. And to pretend for a minute that life is normal, when it really hasn’t been. I don’t want to live in a world where people lose their families and are killed for not conforming. Everything I’ve been doing recently to try to help a man in another country escape threats because he left his faith is such a small drop in the bucket. It is so sad. And I’m tired. But at the same time, the internal optimist in me thinks that if more and more of us put a drop in the bucket, that we will be able to fill it.
(I’ve been volunteering with Secular Rescue. Check them out, and consider giving some money to help more people.)
MelissaMuses 