Where do I start? How do I word this?
I almost feel like this isn't mine to write about and that this perhaps isn't the place, but there's a feeling in my chest and there are words just jumbled about in my head. I can't quite be sure if it's a feeling of sadness or of anger or of confusion, or of a mixture of all three.
My head hurts and my heart feels heavy and sad. I've spent so long today scrolling through social media, reading about the atrocities that have occurred in Manchester. Seeing picture after picture of scared and frightened people in a place where there should only have been happiness and excitement and a feeling of safety. I've seen photographs of smiling children who have since had their lives, which they'd hardly begun, stolen and ripped away from them and I can't now get their faces out of my mind.
I've tried to go about my day as normal today, all whilst hugging my family a little tighter, but I keep on being brought back to this feeling of sadness. I've just come up my room to get in to bed for the night and before I did I went and checked my boys before I came up here - I smiled looking down at their sleeping faces. I made sure that they were tucked in and that they weren't too hot or too cold. I felt sad for the parents who weren't able to do that tonight and with tears in my eyes, I almost whispered "I'm sorry" to my eldest little boy. I'm sad that though his Dad and I do our best each day to teach both of our children how to be good human beings and about how important it is to be kind, there are 'people' in this world who incite hate and terror and I can't explain why. And when he's old enough to ask me about it, I wont know where to begin to even start to explain such evil.
We're going away on Monday - we're taking a family road trip to France and to Belgium and I'm excited and so grateful to be going, but in the same breath, I worry. I worry due to the awful events that have previously taken place in France and now, as the UK raises it's threat level to critical, I feel even more frightened. And I don't want to admit that - I don't want those monsters to think that they're anywhere near achieving the evilness that they hope to. But I'm a Mum and more than anything I worry about my children and I over-think and I'd do anything to keep them safe.
I feel bad for putting my thoughts in to words. I don't know if I should because I almost feel like my sadness is nothing in comparison to what the victims friends and families are going through right now. And the worst thing is, is that there's just absolutely nothing we can do to make it better. This evening I stood staring at a swimming award my youngest little boy was awarded last week and I wished that we could go back to last Thursday, when the sun was shining and this had never happened. But we can't. And I feel a bit lost with it all.. and I just can't understand 'Why?'.
But before I came up here to bed, I watched something that warmed my heart and helped me see the good in this world again.. it was a video about how the local people of Manchester had all come together to help... how taxi drivers had worked through the night, giving free taxi rides to people who needed to get home, how pizza companies had delivered pizza to the hospital staff who stayed on after their shifts helping the injured, how cafe owners had provided food for the people that needed it, how selfless locals had rushed to the scene without worrying about their own safety to do what they could to help and how people have set up pages to raise money for the victims families and also for a homeless man who was knocked to the ground by the blast but who got up and sprinted towards the that were seriously injured to do what he could to help.
I know that sending prayers and love isn't enough. Nothing will ever be enough to bring back the lives of the innocent people and their families who've had them stolen, but I do know that in moments like these we need to look for the good. We need to remember that whilst evil like this sometimes occurs and that sadly, monsters will always exist, this world is also home to so many beautiful and kind souls and there are far more of us than there ever will be of them. And remember that for that reason, given our spirit and our solidarity, we will never be beaten by the monsters.