I am tired.
It is not just 46 plus years of watching the nation slide towards fascism.
It is not just my health.
It is not just the idea that my Dr. tells me to avoid sweets and when I walk outside the front door on Valentine’s Day it seems like Willy Wonka wants to take my hand and walk me through the candy aisle.
It is the idea that America no longer truly seems interested in fixing what ails it. At least 47 percent of the country is fine to live as is, in their perfect bubbles, on the outside of tollways, as in Dallas-Fort Worth, TX, or high on hills, as in Scottsdale, AZ. They climb ivory towers then pronounce their judgment upon women, never even examining their shoes much less walking in them.
They talk to us about “bootstraps” and preach to college kids self-reliance, and “pay back that loan” never stopping to admit to the fact that when they went to college the price was closer to that of a television, not a Lincoln Town Car. And then when kids are doing their best to learn, to study, to grow and build a future for themselves, a foolish nation stands by and sends thoughts when it should send metal detectors, security, and laws to prevent firearms from even approaching a school campus, full of kids pursuing what is left of the American Dream.
I’m tired. I am tired of ducking behind the French bread kiosk when I hear an argument at the grocery store. I am tired of scoping out the “safest” seats in a theater. I am tired of wondering night after night what the last moments of those tykes in Uvalde must have been like, and I am tired of tossing and turning wondering if I could have done more to elect better leaders. I am tired of this nation suffering more mass gun violence in one month than Australia has in 27 years.
“Which one?” is a question that should be reserved for a piece of jewelry, or a uniform, or a selection of cupcakes. We should not have to “narrow down” the subject matter. By the end of this calendar week, we are on statistical course to have had more mass shootings than the entire nation of Australia since 1996, the Port Arthur, Tasmania, Massacre. Since the implementation of gun control, 82 people have died due to mass shootings in Australia.82.In 26 years.In the United States, there is a term for that:January.
And I am tired, so tired, of waking up to what appears to be a sunny day and delaying as long as possible, through my juice, and light breakfast, through my last minute edits, whatever fresh misery the right wing has brought upon this country, either through stochastic, or direct methods.
Students, meanwhile, recalled the previous night's terror. Dominik Molotky said he was learning about Cuban history around 8:15 p.m. when he and the other students heard a gunshot outside the classroom. He told ABC’s “Good Morning America" that a few seconds later, the gunman entered and fired three to four more rounds while the students took cover.
“I was ducking and covering, and the same with the rest of the students. He let off four more rounds and when it went silent for about 30 seconds to a minute, two of my classmates started breaking open a window, and that took about 30 seconds to happen. There was glass everywhere,” Molotky said.
Last night it was Michigan State University. Dominik, at some point, is going to be given a choice. He is going to have to decide if he will continue his studies in person, in a socially welcoming collaborative environment, or if he will defer to the safety of online education. If he is like my goddaughter, he will opt for the latter.
My goddaughter got sick of the weekly lockdowns at her high school in Phoenix, so she checked out. Had we not invested in online education, she may well have dropped out. She does not want to ruin her education. She just doesn’t want to be one of the people with a picture behind yet another candle, at yet another memorial.
She does not want to be one of the dozens per month, sometimes per day, for whom thoughts failed to provide bullet protection. She does not want to be one of the ones for whom prayers, while yes, often well-meaning, did not adequately serve as a combat helmet, which is what too many schools are dealing with; armed combat.
She just wants to be a nurse.
In order to do that, well, she has to not be shot to death like she was trapped at the Alamo.
We generally would not prefer students to attempt a finals exam in the middle of crossfire, right?
Ted Zimbo said he was walking to his dorm when he encountered a woman with a “ton of blood on her.” “She told me, ‘Someone came in our classroom and started shooting,’” Zimbo told The Associated Press. “Her hands were completely covered in blood. It was on her pants and her shoes. She said, ‘It’s my friend’s blood.’”
Ted then proceeded to hide for three hours. Under a blanket.
I don’t know what thoughts that can be sent to Ted to undo the damage done by battlefield stress.
So America, pray, and think, chant and dance, write letters to the editor while sipping sweet tea from your front porch, I don’t care. Because I’m tired. And empty gestures have done nothing but encourage filled coffins.
The blood, is not on my hands. I have spent my entire adult-life advocating against gun violence, and working to elect more and better Democrats. No it is not, definitively, on my hands.
But thanks to the NRA-GOP, at any time, my own blood could be. I could be at a store. Watching a movie. I could be standing in line at a baseball game.
I could be on a school campus, finishing a degree.
But I suppose the possibility of seeing my own blood pour is the price we are expected to pay when the “freedom” misappropriated by the Constitution becomes more important than the freedom we could enjoy from certain elements of it.
“It’s my friend’s blood,” she said, speaking of the red stains on her hands.
And you know the really terrifying part?
We’re not even sure she knew which friend.
-ROC
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