Everything, it feels, is in slow motion. Even football over the weekend, the players all moved slowly... like elephants -- and they were hugging each other, from opposite teams. Football didn't matter to the players. Just like the Holidays. But we have to do it. We have to put on our faces and go. We have to, despite our shock... It feels like 9/11. When the unspeakable and beyond comprehension entered the mix. Numb but yet full of pain. Does it matter that, growing up, my family looked at homes in Newtown but found the commute too far from NYC? No. It doesn't. Does it matter that one of my all time best friends, who happens to be almost twice my age, did grow up there? No. It doesn't. Does it matter that, webbed up in a variety of degrees of separation, I actually know the parents of kids that escaped the massacre which has all of us realizing that NONE of this matters? No. Because what matters now is figuring out how to cope. Wondering when will we feel that our kids are safe again. Making it okay to be happy that I am driving him to school, and then to actually "be happy" about it. Not waiting until they are cozy in their slumber to glance at the news and then go cry... in the shower. Because this isolated tragedy which is too hard to look at because of what it has.is.will-do to it's victims has become all about me and you... everyone. We all lost. And any shred of innocence and trust that still existed, despite war torn nations and planes hitting buildings, is most certainly gone now.
Crazy people do crazy things. But there is crazy and then there is evil. And then there is the big WHY. With circumstance simply not making sense. Things happen to some and not others. There is no rhyme or reason. And then... there is Santa Claus. And not sitting on the couch writing Christmas cards, crying about people that I've never met that aren't doing the same thing. Blaming guns and mental health. And feeling exhausted over who is right and wrong.... Because, there are too many questions that we will never have the answers to -- and the answers don't really matter, because the damage is done.
