Life goes on:

For those who have near misses and not-so-near misses with mass shootings and gun violence.

I had my big freak out and scheduled time with my counselor. I wasn’t the only person in the area asking for emergency counseling visits. The only lingering thing I have noticed is some jumpiness. We went to the state fair, which was absolutely packed with state police, and I still managed to jump if there were loud noises that could maybe be gunfire.

The other day, there was a minor car accident by a church on my route to take my son to daycare. There were enough police officers around that my first thought was “omg, is there a shooting at the church?”

It does feel kind of like everyone’s forgotten a mass shooting happened right in our backyards. The last reports on the topic are from about a month ago. The shooter put his phone in the toilet and his laptop in a hot oven before he left his apartment, and the news reports say the FBI is having trouble recovering any information from the devices. The erstwhile mass shooter was shot 8 times by the young man who stopped him. I’m not naming either of them, because the “good guy with a gun” has requested privacy, and frankly, eff the original shooter.

I think with the rate of gun violence in this country, there’s a sad conclusion to be found. There are going to be more people who have experienced a mass shooting or gun violence than who have not before long. Maybe we are already there.

It doesn’t help the mental health crisis in this country that more and more people are being traumatized by having to run from public gun violence. You read about small children being separated from their parents. You hear about people waiting desperately in staging areas to find out if their loved ones are among the dead.

We got lucky. I imagine it’s possible I’m overreacting, but I’m guessing I’m not the only one who feels this way.