Invisible

     When one of my daughters was just a toddler, she used to cover her face with her hands whenever she got into trouble. It wasn’t a way for her to hide from the world, but rather it was a way for her to disappear. In her mind, she became invisible once she became silent and covered her face. If she couldn’t see me, then I couldn’t see her. Even now in her teen years, there are times where I find her with her hands over her face for one reason or another – trying to hide from the world.
     With all of the troubles in the world today, I find myself metaphorically putting my hands over my face. There seems to be so much hostility, hatred and distrust in the news every day that I can’t help but want to cover my eyes and become invisible. For me, turning on the television anymore has become a herculean task, causing me great anxiety. It’s painful to watch political leaders berate each other, various races voicing their distrust of one another, people sworn to protect and serve being arrested for murder, battery or robbery and children bringing guns to school to kill other children.
     I understand horrible things happen every day and have been happening for centuries upon centuries. The difference now is we have 24-hour coverage of every cataclysmic event that occurs all over the world at any given time. We are inundated with images of hatred, death and turmoil on every channel that are shown again and again until the story dies due to some kind of resolution or just sheer indifference to the situation. Modern society is linked to the world in a way that someone in the 19th, or even 20th, century just didn’t have. Cable television, cell phones, tablets and Internet provides never ending access to the world around them.
     I’ve been avoiding both the local and national televised news as well as anything found in print on the Internet, in a way placing my hands over my face trying to get the bad things to go away. Childish? Perhaps. But, I’m just not sure my heart can take much more.
     So, I’m covering my eyes for a while and am happy to live in ignorant bliss…at least for the next few weeks. I am going to smile more and cry less. I am going to spend time with my children and watch more educational TV. Most of all, I am going to try and love more in a world that I can’t hide from…no matter how hard I try.