Dissonance

The dissonance I’m currently feeling between my warm and sticky summer, filled with popsicles and baseball, versus the suffering I’m witnessing outside my bubble is unsettling.

Aside from these wholly uncomfortable expanders sewn to my chest wall, a reminder of the mastectomy my body is still recovering from, life for the Cervantes family is actually pretty good right now. It’s in these moments that the natural disasters, the wars, the racism and fear-mongering can feel that much more acute. When that off-putting chord is able to reverberate so unnervingly through my body.

My empathic heart screams for the families grieving losses along the Guadalupe river in Texas, and that continue to be torn apart by masked ICE agents, in addition to every other atrocity that hits the news these days. But in these moments, I am learning the more appropriate usages of empathy and compassion. Their suffering is not mine to bear (empathy). However, I can bear witness to their suffering (compassion).

So often I have thought of empathy as my super power, but it can also be my kryptonite. There is a time and place for empathy - no doubt. But it is compassion that allows me to balance personal joy with the world’s suffering. Life is entirely too short to not live in every joyful moment that we are granted. To not appreciate and stay as present as possible for every melting ice cream cone, cannonball splash, and bbq shared with friends and family.

This week, instead of allowing myself to drown in empathy, I am practicing compassion and, in turn, holding dear this wonderful, beautiful, life I have.

Right now.

In this sticky, sweet and summer-blissed moments.

ID: Kelly, in a sleeveless green striped dress, Jackson wearing a baseball cap, Miguel in a dark t-shirt and wearing a baseball cap backwards, and Anessa in a pink and yellow tie dye shirt are all smiling and looking down at the camera with a plane dangling in the blue sky over them. Photo taken at The City Museum in St. Louis.