Babies, sunshine and hope

I dunno what happens to people in their mid-late twenties, (some would say the second Saturn return, but I don't buy that bull,) but I see a lot of people aged 25-30 just sorta loosing hope. We start to understand the magnitude of the problems Earth and the inhabitants of Earth face I think...perviously we bought delutions that we could save the Earth by eating vegan or treesitting to save 38 oak trees on a Berkley campus, but all of a sudden it seems, around age 25, people realize the problems we face are much bigger then can be solved by eating veginaise or biking to work or whatever. In short, around 25-27, people begin to lose that youthful hope that they can impact the Earth positively, that things will be better in their lifetimes. Some people say this is a normal, natural process; that as people mature and except more responsibly for their own actions, they realize the magnatude of what they face and that leads to despair.

So all of this winter, I've sorta been going down that road of despair. Despite my best efforts to make the world better (I sponsor a child, I work in two different shelters with homeless women and women and children in transition, I bike everywhere, I eat organic food, I protest the war in Iraq, I write to government officals, I recycle bathwater, I volunteer my services as an emotional support person to low-income women in labor and birth, I buy fair-trade coffee, and on and on,) the world seems just as shitty as it did before I started doing all this stuff. In fact, as I become more aware of crap happening in the world, it seems shittier. As I attend more documentaries and read more news, the scope of the world's problems seem to overtake me and sometimes I say to myself "well if I can't fix it anyway that says to me that what I do doesn't make too much of a difference, so I might as well become some money grabbing trophy wife or something and only live for myself." Honestly, I can't see a flaw in that logic; realistically, if I step out of all the roles I'm playing at the moment, some idolistic person who hasn't yet reached this stage in life will fill my shoes.....

The good news is, I guess I haven't lost faith entirely...and it only takes something relatively small for me to have hope again. For example, all I needed today to restore my faith that everything was "right with the world," so to speak, was holding and feeding a two-day old baby while talking to her mom about the scope of her love for her new baby, actually seeing the sun for more then five minutes (it was dry nearly all day today in Portland!,) and having a homeless woman apologize to me after cussing me out because the coffee maker was broken (which was not in the least my fault.)

When I realize that this is all it takes for me to feel good about life and humanity again, it makes me positive that I DO MAKE A DIFFERENCE! If that little baby, that sunshine and those apologetic words meant so much to me, what do the words and things I do mean to others? Surely, as small as the difference may be that I am making, I must be making a difference...and when I look at the glass half-full, it is indeed half-full and I make it so for others as well.

Love ya (especially all you new babies out there,)
Carrot

p.s. I've become what my roommates rightly describe as "baby horny..." that period of a woman's life when she craves nothing more then motherhood..I apologize in advance because many of my posts might feature stories about babies!