Thinking

I'm rambling today, but not aloud. Rambling with my words on paper and the thoughts in my head. You know, those thoughts that sometimes shake you to the core, even though you can't put your finger on them?

I hardly slept last night because I made the mistake of watching the news before bed. The news that fills me with sadness and horrific images and stories of people who were victims of someone who took their lives for no reason. It's unthinkable that we live in such a world full of such evil. Unthinkable that we aren't safe anywhere. You could be here today and gone tomorrow. I'm just wondering about these people and their panic. How scary this situation must have been. How absolutely life changing and anxiety inducing.

I'm anxious about it and nowhere close.

I remember when the shooting at Virginia Tech happened. I cried tears and sat in classrooms anxious. I was always that girl in the front, the one asking ?s. Close to the door. I sat there, anxious, just staring out the windows knowing I'd be the first to go if a crazed gunman entered our room. And that could happen. That does happen.

I've always been hypersensitive and empathetic. I used to think it was abnormal for me to be able to feel so deeply what others feel. I often wished I could just turn it off because it tore me up inside. I hated feeling other's heartbreak. It'd hit me like a ton of bricks. And my own heartbreak? It was always too much. My feelings hurt for being left out, for being forgotten, and then the internal battle to forget it. Not so easy. The losses, oh the losses.

A life lost.

A love lost.

A child lost.

The tears I've cried for people I didn't know have broken me. The sleepless nights for the children I have never met, the children who never had the chance to grow have changed me. Isn't it funny how love and loss can shape you? The love you have and the love you lose are two of the most crucial aspects that make us who we are. The love for my own children is almost too much for me to bear. The worry about them. I have woken up in a sweat just scared of losing them.......