I needed a break tonight. Emotional, mental, physical. From the day, and from myself.

My thoughts whirl and recycle. Purpose. Point. Effectiveness. Waste. Grief. Life.

I'm 25. I'm single. I'm blessed.
I'm selfish. I'm wasting time, I'm living.

Thoughts that contradict themselves until I'm worn thin.

I thought to watch a movie on my computer. Movies can have such an effective displacement of ones self. A time away.

A character in the movie died, and while normally one for crying a tear or two in sad movies, I found myself rather unhinged.

I cried for a raw and terrible loss of my first love. I cried for the loss of my dog and best friend, Oskar, this summer. I cried for being alone, and I cried for Haiti.

And I think- this is what exhaustion can do.

There are people, everyday, who cry for much less. And there are those who would think that I should have recouped from heart break sooner. Or that grief for a dog that extends beyond the week is ridiculous.

But the more I think about grief, the less I think it is relative.

There is how much we love, and how much we lose as a result.

I can't put all of Haiti under my skin. It makes me cry for the man who broke my heart and the dog that died in August. It makes me sob for fictional characters.

There are people who would cry for less- and there are people who wouldn't cry for much more.

These people exist in circumstances of anguish every day. People starve, babies die, disease spreads.

I want to be stronger. I want to pull the good under my skin with the bad. I want to bend and not break. I want to be able to love without falling apart.

Haitians have a proverb, 'all that we don't know is more than we will ever be'

Thank God.