My anxiety is so thick and abundant today that I could pack it into jars. It's been like this since the Texas school shooting. I am tired of hearing about how willing people are to sacrifice our students and teachers, my husband, on the alter of their personal brand of freedom. Would my freedom mean anything to me if I have to spend it without him?
Lately, I've been struggling to not imagine exactly how it would happen. I know that it would have to be in the parking lot or entry way since they have a metal detector at the doorway. I imagine that wherever I am, I will know. I will collapse as if I'm the one shot. Or I won't and it will be a phone call that sends me hurtling to the ground. I don't know how I will get up afterwards. But I've experienced just enough terrible things in my life to know that I will get up. I will enter the empty house. It will stay empty because I will be empty and we will be empty together.
That's when I'll learn who my real friends and family are. Left to myself, I will probably not leave the house. I will shut the doors against everyone talking about freedom and guns and death and policy and prayers. I will shut the doors on all of the people who are not grieving and I will sit with all of the pieces of the life that we were building stuck at whatever stage he was last there with me for. I will pick up the pieces and sort them, carefully, swollenly, dimly. The only visitors I'll accept are the ones who know better than to tell me what to do or how to be. All advisors will be shown the door. Everyone with an opinion to sell will have to wait until I die too. Because I won't give a damn.
