Can I say it? Do I even want to go…there?

I woke this morning to the news of another mass shooting. Over one hundred people injured or killed. As I wiped my blurry eyes, I tried to make sense of it. But how? How can I make sense of something that I don’t understand?

How can I begin to understand the terror that the people in that club must have felt? People who were out with friends to have a good time, dancing, drinking, laughing?

Right before trembling, hiding, praying, fearing?

I can’t.

A man walked into a club with an assault rifle and opened fire on a group of innocent people. Humans.

It’s too early to know anything about him yet. I can assume he was full of hate. I can assume he was troubled. All I know is he and several other people died senselessly.

I can’t look at social media anymore today. I’m sick to death of what I’m seeing. I saw a post that said, (and I paraphrase) that this is President Obama’s fault. I saw another that said something to the effect of “lock and load.” I saw another that said “you reap what you sow.”

Fuck that noise.

Sadness, anger, disgust, fear, desperation, pity, empathy, sympathy, pain. Those are just a few of the emotions I have felt today. I wasn’t there. I don’t know any victims personally, but I shake my head and close my eyes and try to block out the things that my fellow American citizens are saying in response to this awful horrible act.

An act where people died. Where innocent people lost their lives.

Can we stop? Can we please quit making it political? Just for a minute, just for a little while, can we please take a minute and remember that people died? People are in hospitals. Families have no idea if their loved ones are alive.

I don’t care what your religious views are. It doesn’t matter how you feel about gun control. It makes no difference whether you are straight, gay, trans, or none of the above.

What matters is that lives were lost for no reason at all other than hate.

Hate.

Are we, as a nation, becoming immune to these acts? Are we brushing them off? Is that why these dismissive statements are being written? Have we lost our heart? I saw that President Obama has had to issue statements in response to mass shootings fifteen times in his presidency. Can this be accurate?

We may not be able to change laws. I don’t think any one person can “make America great again.” But maybe if we all try, we can agree to be less hateful. To love our neighbor. To follow the golden rule.

 

When I hit shuffle on my iTunes today, Jeff Buckley’s voice began to sing “Hallelujah.” I won’t pretend I understand the lyrics, but they seemed fitting to my mood:

“Maybe there’s a God above

But all I ever learned from love

Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya.

And it’s not a cry that you’ll hear at night.

It’s not somebody who’s seen the light.

It’s a call and it’s a broken hallelujah.”

I don’t know what’s right or wrong. I don’t know what I believe anymore. I don’t know if there’s a God. I don’t know if there’s not. I don’t know the answers, and I certainly don’t know how to explain to my children what happened in the early hours of this morning.

But I know this. I am sad. I am scared, and I am sick and tired of waking to this news.

I didn’t edit this. It’s simply my random thoughts. Thank you for reading my stream of consciousness.

I stand with Orlando.