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How are you holding up?

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With the news out of Ukraine getting bleaker and more heartbreaking by the day, I am struggling with how to “be.” I wake up in the morning to the birds chirping outside my window. I have running water and heat and food and all the day to day amenities I need within an arm’s reach. I work from the comfort of my own home where I have uninterrupted communication service. I am able to talk to my family every day, who I know is enjoying the same luxury of peace and safety that I do. And yet a war rages on across the world.

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Concerns are rising about potential chemical warfare. Attacks draw closer to NATO’s front line. China has been tapped for Russian military and economic assistance. 1,300 Ukrainian soldiers and nearly 600 innocent civilians are dead. Journalists are being targeted and killed. Millions of Ukrainians have sought refuge in neighboring countries, and those countries are beginning to crumble under the burden of caring for them all.

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Yet that doesn’t even begin to account for the total loss and devastation suffered, human, emotional, physical, or otherwise. And there is still so much more to come.

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But here I sit. Listening to the birds sing while I drink my coffee and think about what recipe to make next or what photo to share.

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I know that life can’t come to a halt despite all that is going on around us, but how do we reconcile our personal realities with the reality of what’s going on in the world?