in a haze
I'm having a hard time being on today. I find myself either grasping for distractions -- my kitchen is really clean and I've watched approximately 15 episodes of Friends in the last two days -- and if I fail, I stare at a wall, my eyes unseeing, only images of the aftermath of the shooting in my mind. I'm having a hard time making sense of anything. My kids are watching a lot of TV and there is a heaviness in my chest. At any moment, if I forget how funny friends is and walk away from my Facebook groups, I feel I will dissolve in tears. It's easier to pretend I don't feel and just distract distract distract.
Yesterday, I remembered that I need to write my brother back, and thought suddenly how fun it would be to visit him in the winter. I pictured going ice skating at Rockefeller Center... and in the next moment, my picture turned into one of chaos and tragedy. What if a shooting happens? Manhattan is so big; it is certainly plausible. One side of me shakes my head and mumbled something about how fear isn't of God -- the other side says, "A little healthy fear is good sometimes."
In the almost six years that Austen has been alive, the three deadliest shootings in the US have happened. I typically hate it when people say, "What is this world coming to?" because really, the world has always been here, forever. I don't blame it on anything in particular... it's easy to blame guns, mental health, violent boy culture, but death and hate and violence and calamity have always existed. Maybe on a smaller plane, but now the earth is bursting at the seams with 8 billion occupants. So, of course it seems worst. If it's not this, it's another.
But still, I worry and cry and think, "What is this world coming to?" It's scary when it happens again and again in your own country. It's scary when you think about the fact that shootings don't even phase children now because it's just something they're used to hearing. It's scary when your two-year-old sees you crying and says, "What's wrong, Mommy? People die?"
I try not to watch the videos, but it's too late. For some reason, I can't look away. Normally I tell myself caring doesn't change anything, I don't have to care, this doesn't affect me. But I can no longer not care. My heart must be torn with each sound of a bullet exploding in the air. I'm alive. And connected to these humans. And I mourn for those who lost their lives, even though I didn't even know they existed three days ago. I cry for babies without their mamas, and I mostly I cry for mamas without their children. It's not about me, I know. But my heart feels this deep desire to ache in this tiny way. Their pain in incomprehensible, and I don't want to comprehend it. The country is aching and crying, and I'm just crying with it.
Yesterday, I remembered that I need to write my brother back, and thought suddenly how fun it would be to visit him in the winter. I pictured going ice skating at Rockefeller Center... and in the next moment, my picture turned into one of chaos and tragedy. What if a shooting happens? Manhattan is so big; it is certainly plausible. One side of me shakes my head and mumbled something about how fear isn't of God -- the other side says, "A little healthy fear is good sometimes."
In the almost six years that Austen has been alive, the three deadliest shootings in the US have happened. I typically hate it when people say, "What is this world coming to?" because really, the world has always been here, forever. I don't blame it on anything in particular... it's easy to blame guns, mental health, violent boy culture, but death and hate and violence and calamity have always existed. Maybe on a smaller plane, but now the earth is bursting at the seams with 8 billion occupants. So, of course it seems worst. If it's not this, it's another.
But still, I worry and cry and think, "What is this world coming to?" It's scary when it happens again and again in your own country. It's scary when you think about the fact that shootings don't even phase children now because it's just something they're used to hearing. It's scary when your two-year-old sees you crying and says, "What's wrong, Mommy? People die?"
I try not to watch the videos, but it's too late. For some reason, I can't look away. Normally I tell myself caring doesn't change anything, I don't have to care, this doesn't affect me. But I can no longer not care. My heart must be torn with each sound of a bullet exploding in the air. I'm alive. And connected to these humans. And I mourn for those who lost their lives, even though I didn't even know they existed three days ago. I cry for babies without their mamas, and I mostly I cry for mamas without their children. It's not about me, I know. But my heart feels this deep desire to ache in this tiny way. Their pain in incomprehensible, and I don't want to comprehend it. The country is aching and crying, and I'm just crying with it.
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