Hello friends. I hope that you are taking care of yourself today. It's been a long week... and I thought it was time to unpack a little of that here.
Tuesday afternoon, our country once again faced the horror of gun violence. Nineteen children and 2 teachers are dead. Lives cut short in the blink of an eye; it's horrific.
I've had such a heavy heart the past few days. I thought about moving my already scheduled blog posts since they seemed so self-centered and unimportant after what unfolded on Tuesday. However, I decided to keep them scheduled and to unpack everything after I had a few days to reflect. And I needed time to process anyways.
We are living in interesting times... and I can't seem to wrap my head around it. Our lawmakers are trying (and succeeding) to pass laws against abortion. Yet, we can't even feed babies already born due to a nation wide formula shortage. We are so focused on what will happen to unborn babies, yet a barely 18 year old can purchase two assault rifles with no background check, and then turn around and go into a school and shoot up innocent children. Nineteen children are dead... and it seems like many politicians are still too worried about all the wrong things.
It just seems so endless. And endless wave of hopelessness. Will it ever change?
One of my Facebook friends shared a post that spoke to me. I'm going to share it over here, because... well, I honestly didn't have the balls to share it on my own personal Facebook page. I didn't want to listen to the barrage of crap that I'd get from some of my "friends" who want to talk about the 2nd amendment. (And let's not even start with the people you can't force to wear a face mask, yet they're ok with forcing a women through a pregnancy no matter the circumstances...)
I don't care about the 2nd amendment. I don't want to take away everyones guns. But for the love of all things holy, why the heck does anyone need an assault rifle? Those should only be in the hands of our military men and women. Normal, everyday people don't need assault weapons to go hunting. They just don't.
Like... what the heck is happening?!?! Why do we keep doing nothing about the gun violence problem in our country. Where the hell are the gun control laws? Why can't our lawmakers get over themselves and pass the background checks that 90% of Americans are for. I just don't understand any of this... and I'm so tired of it.
At the end of the day, it all comes down to money and power. Politicians want to keep their donations and they want to stay in power. And it's sickening.
Real talk- I'm a 37 year old woman who has had multiple conversations with my loving husband about whether or not we even want to bring a child into this nightmare. I've always wanted kids. Eliot has always wanted children. Yet, over the past 10 years of our marriage, both of us have had moments where we've questioned it. At this point, I'm trusting in a higher power. If we're meant to have kids, we'll have them. If not, then I'll find a way to be ok with that and move forward.
What I do know with 100% certainty, that should we be blessed to have children, they will not be attending public school. Eliot and I will be homeschooling them. I had a wonderful experience in public schools. Eliot had a great experience at his private schools. But I'm not sending my child to a school to learn how to avoid getting shot up by a gunman. We've been teetering back and forth about this for years now, but both of us are on the same page. (Not due to this event, Eliot and I decided this months ago after seeing how nonsense with the pandemic played out.)
My heart is so heavy. I think of all of my cousins and friends with small children. I think about the horror of sending them to school... only to never see them again.
And I also think about how awful it is that you have to be aware of your surroundings no matter where you go. Whenever Eliot and I go to the movies, I'm always looking for the exits. I usually wear my sneakers when we go out, so I can run if I need to. I keep track of places to hide. Where the backdoors of our favorite stores at the mall are located. Where there are emergency exits in the big box stores. The list goes on...
No joke, I'm getting to the point where I don't even want to leave the house some days... it just doesn't feel like it will ever end. I'm so tired of feeling hopeless about it.
Nineteen children and 2 teachers are dead. How many more before things change?
I can't even deal with any of this anymore. I'm so disappointed in our country and in all of our elected leaders. It's 2022; we should be better than this. And unfortunately, at this point I won't believe we can actually be better than this until I see it. °o°
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