Music to listen to while you read

"Lift"-Shannon Noll



I look fat on camera
Later that day, my mom told me that she saw me on the news. I was wondering how since there were no cameras around. I watched the 5:00 news to see if she was right, and I remembered that there was a camera out there that night. Sure enough, the report, and there I was. I thought to myself "Holy crap! That's me? I look so fat!" I know there's that saying that the camera adds 10 lbs, but it looked like there were 4 cameras on me. The last time I ran may have been a few weeks before that, but I thought my Victoria Beckham-esque diet during the day would make up for that. Once exams are over, I'm definitely hitting the gym. The next time I'm on camera, I'm going to look fit and in shape and not like a chocolate Jabba the Hut (I don't care if I misspelled it; the only sci-fi I do is "Doctor Who").

I felt bad, because I was being nice
Let me explain. Whenever I heard about someone's death on the news, I always said "Awww" under my breath. It was my way of showing that I feel bad and care when really didn't affect me that much. Two weeks ago, I sat in front of the TV watching the coverage of the shootings at Virginia Tech while reading articles online. I watched as the number of people dead jumped from 2 to 21 to 32, and all the while, I had this feeling. It was a mix of sadness and empathy. I was lucky enough not to have been killed; 32 people weren't. Networks interviewed those who survived. As I watched, I was glad that those survivors chose to do interviews so soon, because they felt okay enough to do them then. I knew if they waited, they would have been a mess after they finally grasp what happened. This whole thing was different, because I wasn't trying to be nice. I really did feel bad for them.

Some people just don't get it
I know not everyone has had a traumatic experience, but finding out people's expectations of how I should feel was odd. Some friends wondered why I was going to class so soon afterwards, expecting me to be in my room curled up in the fetal position rocking back and forth crying. Granted there were some moments where that didn't seem like a bad idea, but I needed to keep going. Some friends asked me if this experience would lead to my buying a gun. To quote Whitney Houston, the answer to that question is "Hell to the no!" I'm not a big gun fan, and I support stricter gun control, but that's beside the point. I ma not feel as safe as I used to, but I don't want this experience to drastically change how I go about my life. I understand they didn't mean to, but it really upset me when people said "At least you're alive". To me, that sentence just glossed over the intense emotions I was dealing with at the time. That I'm alive, and that's that. I understand these people were trying to help, but this is the truth.

Things aren't going to be the same again
Just before the wave of sadness came in, I wondered if things would ever go back to normal. Would I ever look toward that street corner again? Would I ever go to the library at night? Would I ever wait at that bus stop without having to fight back tears? The answers to those questions are "Yes", but new questions have come to mind. Will I not get mad paranoid when I walk outside at night? Will I think about everything that happened more once the semester is over? Will I ever be over it? I'm still not sure about the answers to these questions. I know that the normal that I've known for the past 20 years is gone forever, and I have to take time to adjust myself to this new normal. Honestly, it's not entirely bad; it's given me a change in perspective. I now understand just how precious life is, and how no one knows when one day, all of a sudden everything fades to black. The little things that used to get me down are just that: little. Conversely, the little things that cheered me up are so much more. They're what keeps me going during those times I feel maybe Dave Chappelle was one to something when he "went crazy" and left for South Africa (btw, RDU to Cape Town one way is about $2,100). All these emotions are strange, complex, and intense, but I need to keep going. When they decide to come in the form of a tsunami, I just have to ride it.

At around 2:30 AM on March 22, 2007, it happened. I just wanted to leave the library and go to bed. I just wanted to go to sleep and finish a project that I knew wasn't going to work. I didn't want to have a gun pointed at me in an attempted armed robbery. I didn't want to run away in the direction the gun was pointing in. I didn't want to fear that I was going to get shot, or die. It's funny how we get what we don't want sometimes.

The next morning, I was still a bit shaken, but I felt better later that day. People kept asking me if I was alright, and I told them I was. Frankly, I got tired of being asked that question. However, I remembered this one episode of "Grey's Anatomy" where Cristina thought she was fine after having a miscarriage; she was a crying mess at the end. I felt like that all the baggage I wasn't feeling was gonna catch up with me, and about a week later, it did. I had flashbacks that popped up at random times, that some times provoke anxiety attacks. Everyone that asked if I was fine seemed to have moved on; ironically, that's when I needed them to ask me that. A huge wave of sadness came in that Tuesday, and didn't leave until that Friday.

So, how am I now? I'm fine. Okay, let me elaborate. I'm in the process of accepting what happened. I still think about that night and am amazed at how vivid the memories are. I've just started crossing the street at that intersection, and going to the library at night again. Honestly, I'm not sure how long it should take for me to move on, but it's okay. I'm taking as long as I need to.

You have just witnessed The Great Blog Post Purge of April 2007. I felt it was time to start over. I won't make any promises that I'll update more often, because I'll probably not keep them.