This has been another weekend of tragedy in our country.  It’s only been a few months since the last mass shooting, and here we go again.  There are other tragedies we’ve dealt with too lately; Hurricane Sandy comes to mind pretty quickly.

And like many others out there, I am glued to the news sites, to CNN, to wherever to get the latest information, to know the details.  Like most people, part of it is watching the train wreck.  The other part of it is wanting to know “why?”

But some things affect me more than others.  Or differently than others.  I remember years ago being informed by our upstairs tenant that their baby had died in utero after a difficult labor.  I remember crying for two days, my heart aching like I’d lost my own child.  I went to the funeral.  This was a person I barely knew.  It was something about the fact that it was a child who had been lost that affected me that way.  I felt sick to my stomach, and devastated.

This weekend’s news had the same affect on me.  This time, the tragedy involved children.  Young children.  And I felt like my heart had been broken.

I had had the advantage of being so busy at work on Friday that I did not hear the news until I came home much later.  And then, I heard it through a facebook post.  From there I went to CNN.com, and read the beginning of the story.  That is all I could stand.  I had to walk away.  I have yet to watch a newscast since, have not read more than just the barest of information.  I am skimming the posts on facebook that bring up the subject, passing them by as quickly as I can.  I just cannot deal with this information now.  Knowing more won’t help me.

I know it is okay to unplug and step away.  Usually I have to do that at some point anyway during a disaster or mass shooting.  I read everything I can for a day or two or three, but eventually, I need to step back, to walk away, to shut it off.  Otherwise, I’ll drive myself crazy.

There is much talk about renewed interest in gun control, in figuring out how to fix the mental health situation in this country.  And I think now is the time to move that direction.  But I won’t be discussing it here, this is not the place.  I will think of my children, who are whole and happy and sane (my son is in the prime age bracket for schizophrenic behavior to start exhibiting itself), and count my blessings, all while I’m keeping the television off.  I just can’t handle it any other way.

I am so sad.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 16th, 2012 at 7:51 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.