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I wrote an essay earlier this week on my professor’s very broad topic of “school shootings” and it’s affected me in ways I didn’t expect. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the events of 4/30 for a single second this week, which I found strange because I thought I had 1/7
fully processed and come to terms with what happened, but I haven’t. I don’t feel I was given the opportunity. I wasn’t on campus during the shooting. I was driving back to Charlotte at the time. I remember getting phone calls from my family and emails from the school with 2/7
the subject “RUN, HIDE, FIGHT.” I burst into tears and cried for the rest of my drive. I didn’t talk about it though. I felt like I wasn’t allowed to because I wasn’t actually there when it happened. But I am allowed to. I’m allowed to be scared and horrified and devastated 3/7
I’m allowed to mourn on this day for the rest of my life. I wasn’t there,but I felt the tragedy of that event so deeply that I’m still crying as I type this two years later. I’m terrified to leave my house, especially in the wake of recent mass shootings. I’m so scared that I 4/7
or someone I know will be randomly and senselessly killed as a result of gun violence. I flinch when people in parking lots pull bags out of their trunk. I avoid trips to the grocery store because I don’t want to be gunned down in the frozen food aisle. I will never be 5/7
the same, not only because of 4/30 but because our country still refuses to do something about our overwhelming gun violence problem. There’s no reason that I or any other person should ever feel unsafe attending school, work, church, or any place we could possibly go. 6/7
I don’t have a revelation or anything for the end of this thread. I wish I did. All I have to say is that I’m scared every single day and no one should ever feel like this. Our government can do something about it. Please, make them. https://www.everytown.org"> https://www.everytown.org . 7/7
