Let me tell you, nothing uses the energy of an introvert like little kids that you could, theoretically, be away from (e.g. they're not yours). I spent the weekend first visiting my grandmother in New Hampshire, and then with my beautiful and talented nieces and their parents. My grandmother seems to be doing quite well, which is reassuring, and we had a good visit; my nieces are hilarious, and it's great to see my brother and his wife. Yesterday we actually had the whole immediate clan together, parents and kids and grandkids, the first time with the new grandchild, and that was nice. Nice to be back at the house after a couple days on the road, though. I love spending time with the kids, but...well, if I felt like I could do it without going insane, maybe I'd have my own.
Hope, to me, is a somehow quintessentially human element. People in the most desperate circumstances find somewhere within themselves a spark of belief that things will get better, that the hurting and the unhappy and the who-knows-what will, if not stop, moderate, and some light will come. People find this spark in really fun places, like Palestine and Afghanistan. I think it's one of those faith-based things, that there's not so much a reason to believe.
Somehow, I think, even as the shit flies, hope makes life better.
Still looking. Somewhere inside me is the conviction that things will improve somehow. Breath goes in, breath goes out.