It's five minutes into the 9 o'clock news, and the newscasters are still talking about people getting shot. The situation near Washington D.C. is just staggeringly awful - I think if I lived up there I would not leave my house. I'd get groceries delivered and hide.
Now they're talking about a shooting that happened here in Dallas. A father of a new baby. Thirty rounds from a "military-style" weapon. Another town around here - a police officer and a customer were shot to death in a gas station parking lot. Does that really seem necessary? Why are people filled with so much hatred and rage that they randomly shoot and kill people?
If I think about this too much it gets to me. I get scared living alone. What if something happened to me and I died? How long would it take for people to figure it out? What would happen to my cat? All of my stuff? I've been thinking lately that I should write a will. I wrote one, once, as fun afternoon activity with a childhood friend.
We were about eight or nine, I think, and now that I am recalling these things we used to do, we were pretty dark, depressive, odd. Both of us had the foundation to end up in trouble - she did, I didn't. One afternoon we were talking about dying, and decided to write wills. Silly things like, "All my books go to Katie, all my dolls go to Amber," and so forth. Just the fact that we discussed and wrote out last wishes seems crazy to me now that I work with children who are eight and nine years old. I can't imagine any of them doing something like that, yet death is something so much more familiar to these kids than it was for me and Katie.
They've dealt with so much. One kid, near the beginning of the school year, missed a couple of days because he had to go to a funeral for the cousin he saw get shot in the head. Another girl, a tiny, sweet little eight-year-old, each day at school, at least once, mentions the baby her older sister had last year that died. She draws pictures of babies with angel wings and has a picture of the dead baby in her school notebook. Every time I have the classes do something with drawing, at least one of them draws something to do with the World Trade Center. Today, for example, I instructed them to make a poster encouraging people to respect the Earth. Ecology. Anti-pollution. I didn't expect one kid to draw a picture of two tall buildings with little cross grave markers on them, with a plane going toward the building, and a note above the plane reading, "Please respect the earth by not crashing into buildings." I don't even know where to begin to discuss this kind of thing with the children. It's really more their parents' place, but sometimes they ask me questions, and I wish I had the answers.
I worry about these kids. I feel so responsible for them. It's a scary world. I wish there was something I could tell them to make them feel safe. I wish there was something I could tell myself so I might feel safe. Living in fear is a horrible thing, but when, every time I turn on the news, I see yet another thing that makes me scared, I can't help it.
Hmm. I'm probably just being dramatic because I'm doped up on both Benadryl and Contac, trying to kill the flu before it kills me. I never go to bed before midnight, and here it is 9:30, with me in my pyjamas ready to go to sleep. I don't like being sick. Especially when I absolutely have to go to work. At least the kids are off Wednesday through Friday. I can deal with sitting through boring lectures because then at least I can sit down. Monitoring 19 people's actions all day makes being sick a little more difficult.
Now they're talking about a shooting that happened here in Dallas. A father of a new baby. Thirty rounds from a "military-style" weapon. Another town around here - a police officer and a customer were shot to death in a gas station parking lot. Does that really seem necessary? Why are people filled with so much hatred and rage that they randomly shoot and kill people?
If I think about this too much it gets to me. I get scared living alone. What if something happened to me and I died? How long would it take for people to figure it out? What would happen to my cat? All of my stuff? I've been thinking lately that I should write a will. I wrote one, once, as fun afternoon activity with a childhood friend.
We were about eight or nine, I think, and now that I am recalling these things we used to do, we were pretty dark, depressive, odd. Both of us had the foundation to end up in trouble - she did, I didn't. One afternoon we were talking about dying, and decided to write wills. Silly things like, "All my books go to Katie, all my dolls go to Amber," and so forth. Just the fact that we discussed and wrote out last wishes seems crazy to me now that I work with children who are eight and nine years old. I can't imagine any of them doing something like that, yet death is something so much more familiar to these kids than it was for me and Katie.
They've dealt with so much. One kid, near the beginning of the school year, missed a couple of days because he had to go to a funeral for the cousin he saw get shot in the head. Another girl, a tiny, sweet little eight-year-old, each day at school, at least once, mentions the baby her older sister had last year that died. She draws pictures of babies with angel wings and has a picture of the dead baby in her school notebook. Every time I have the classes do something with drawing, at least one of them draws something to do with the World Trade Center. Today, for example, I instructed them to make a poster encouraging people to respect the Earth. Ecology. Anti-pollution. I didn't expect one kid to draw a picture of two tall buildings with little cross grave markers on them, with a plane going toward the building, and a note above the plane reading, "Please respect the earth by not crashing into buildings." I don't even know where to begin to discuss this kind of thing with the children. It's really more their parents' place, but sometimes they ask me questions, and I wish I had the answers.
I worry about these kids. I feel so responsible for them. It's a scary world. I wish there was something I could tell them to make them feel safe. I wish there was something I could tell myself so I might feel safe. Living in fear is a horrible thing, but when, every time I turn on the news, I see yet another thing that makes me scared, I can't help it.
Hmm. I'm probably just being dramatic because I'm doped up on both Benadryl and Contac, trying to kill the flu before it kills me. I never go to bed before midnight, and here it is 9:30, with me in my pyjamas ready to go to sleep. I don't like being sick. Especially when I absolutely have to go to work. At least the kids are off Wednesday through Friday. I can deal with sitting through boring lectures because then at least I can sit down. Monitoring 19 people's actions all day makes being sick a little more difficult.
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