Colorado Shooting

I awoke this morning and everything felt like any other day. I showered, dressed, and went to work. I updated a spreadsheet and sent it out.

I then hopped on Twitter.

My stomach dropped and my heart jumped to my throat.

I became numb.

I struggled to grasp properly what I was reading. I jumped on Google to find more.

I read story after story of the events that happened just a few hours ago. A gunman walked in to a movie theater during a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises, threw smoke/tear gas and opened up with an assault rifle in to the crowd of random, innocent movie goers just excited to see the movie. Excitement may have been the last thing at least 12 of those people felt before the candle of their life was blown out by some... asshole.

Asshole is far too good of a word to describe what this person truly is, but at this point I still lack the mental facility to properly describe him.

I am numb.

I went back on Twitter and saw someone post that they lost their friend, Jessica Redfield to the shooter last night. He linked to her Twitter account and when you click her name you can see that her last tweet was about giving her friend crap about not going to a midnight showing. Her final exclamation: "THE MOVIE DOESN'T START FOR 20 MINUTES" ( https://twitter.com/JessicaRedfield ).

I can't comprehend what her family and friends think when they see that.

I (as far as I know) know no one that was there last night, yet it's such an insane, unimaginable act, it still grabs me by the throat and doesn't let me go. There was a 3 month old who got shot. I try my best to turn my mind towards why a 3 month old was at a midnight movie; to get back to my sarcastic, offensive wit, but I can't. I want to, if only so I can get the gears of my mind turning, but they are stuck.

I want to know. I want to know why. I need to know why. I keep thinking about what the family and friends must be going through. My mind is continuing in a circle, unable to escape. These people were just going out to see a movie. They weren't Soldiers on patrol in Afghanistan looking for bad guys. They weren't police going through a neighborhood looking for a suspect. They weren't even mall security guards making sure no one stole panties from Victoria's Secret. These were just everyday people looking to be entertained for a couple hours and now they are gone.

I am not a theist, so it would be patronizing to say my prayers are with these people, and even if I could, it would grant them little solace. There truly is no magic grease that will help these people move on from this tragedy. All I can offer is my sincere feeling of shared shock and sadness, and promise that with time, the pain will fade and the memories lose their sting.

Hopefully one day, they will at least be able to feel numb.