What Would They Think?

************Trigger Warning**************

This is triggering for me, it may be triggering for you.

Early this morning, around 4 pm, my husband got up because he couldn't sleep. He went into the den to watch TV. I went back to sleep, and woke up around 5:30 because I knew it was about the time he went to work. I got up, and went into the den to get him. He was watching the news, about a mass shooting in Colorado at the screening of the new Batman movie.

My husband went to work, and I went back to bed. It took me quite awhile to fall back asleep, however. I couldn't stop thinking about how disgusting the human race is.

Events where masses of innocent people die are a trigger for me. The morning of the massive earthquake in Japan, I cried and sobbed helplessly for hours. I remember when the shooting happened at Columbine in high school, and the shooting at Virginia Tech. September 11th. I don't know why I continue to watch the news when it upsets me so gravely. I'm depressed about the state of the world and humanity for a week after something like this happens.

I read the story on this latest shooting when I got out of bed this morning. I read how the gunman walked up the aisles, seemingly picking people at random. Children were shot in the face. People trampled each other to get out the theater. People saw other people die right in front of them. The panic and anxiety take hold when I read details like this. Pain wells in my chest and my throat. Tears are uncontrollable. I can't even imagine aiming a gun at a helpless child, and killing them. How can anyone do this? One mother said she didn't even think twice about letting her kids go to a mid-night movie, because before today, who would even think something like this could happen? At the movies. Where a lot of people just went to relax and have fun. Where families were. Where children were. Where babies were.

My beliefs and opinions are my own. I'm not going to berate or belittle anyone for their opinions, nor would I try to change them. I expect the same from everyone else. But, immediately I thought of a piece I saw on the "Today" show yesterday. A doctor had a near-death experience, and said she saw heaven, Jesus, and angels. And they sent her back to continue living her life. Really? Really? How can anyone think that, and then look at this awful event in Colorado and justify to themselves that God is everywhere? Really? God let some monster walk down an aisle, pick a 3-month old baby, and shoot them? He let him shoot a 9-year old girl in the cheek? He let people get trampled in a flood of panic and adrenaline? He let children die slowly, bleeding out onto the floor because some psycho kid got bullied in school? Please. I don't understand how anyone can have unshakeable faith. I think mine was shattered when I was a child, and has only crumbled away as I've aged. By now, there is nothing left. I overheard my husband's aunt on the phone yesterday while she was watching this "miraculous" near-death experience on the "Today" show. She was talking to my mother-in-law (her sister), and telling her that me and my husband don't believe in stuff like this, and it's such a shame. How can we not when we see "powerful" evidence like this? Ha.

If anyone could step outside of the human race, and look at as a whole, would they think? I think they would be repulsed. Humans are an angry, violent, cruel species. When people can shoot 60 innocent people, when people can kill others because they think their religion is right and yours is wrong, when people can crash planes into buildings just to destroy life, how can that be right? 1% of the population lives like kings, while billions of people are sick, poverty-stricken, homeless, abused, and forgotten. It makes me sick to my stomach. It makes me panic. It gives me anxiety. It's days like today when I rock myself and tell myself hundreds of times, "You are only one person". I am only one person. I can't save everyone. I can't save every animal. I honestly am better off sticking my head in the sand, like an ostrich, and being ignorant. Because when I see stuff like what I've seen today, my heart breaks. It hurts in my chest. I can't stand to look at or talk to another human being. I can only cradle my dogs to my chest, and cry.

I will step off my soapbox now and again, I must express that my opinions are mine and mine alone. If you believe something different, that's fine with me. But on days like today, I can only cry that we (humans) are being allowed to continue to evolve. Because, honestly, what's next?