Today marks the 20th anniversary of the church shooting I was at when I was 16. There's lots of local coverage about it. My old church has put out new videos about it. There was a special memorial service today for it.
The mantra that's been attached to this event is "God wastes nothing" and also "The darkness did not overcome the light". I'm not sure what they mean by this exactly. My life has been darkened, and death is so senseless. It's so positive a thing to say in the face of something so awful.
I don't mean to be snarky. Maybe I do mean to put some emotional distance between "Them" and "Me". I'm protective about the shooting. I thought I was an open book about my life until two years ago my counselor asked me how many times I'd sat down and told that story to someone from beginning to end.
Oh. Never.
Maybe I just can't relate, because they've moved on and I haven't. People are posting about how for a few years after the shooting they constantly looked for exits or jumped at the drop of a book, and how it may still occasionally happen. But I can't sleep at night because I'm afraid a crazed man is going to enter my house and murder me and my family. I'm not afraid of burglars. I'm afraid of men who can't be reasoned with. I sit in the corner of a restaurant next to the exit, my back always to the wall, scanning for suspicious characters. My anxiety builds in loud places, and instead of startling less at unexpected noises, I've worked hard at composing my face to hide the terror I know is unreasonable.
So I probably need to work on that.
I'm not Baptist anymore. I'm not even Protestant. And I skipped right over Catholic to the end of the Christian road: I am an Orthodox Christian. And there's something about it that rolls around in your heart differently; something that reminds me that Christianity has always been an eastern religion. I am someone who could be described as deeply devout, and I find refuge and comfort and clarity in the person of Christ. But I suspect that the way my Protestant friends and family frame this awful event and their own sufferings is at odds with how I experience them, and I want that to explain my resistance.
Honestly, though, as a feeble attempt to be courageous, I would have to admit that I relish anything that will give me distance from them and this shooting. I'm terrified of it overcoming me. I writhe in discomfort at the thought of looking again into the same eyes that I stared at when gunshots were ringing in our ears. I'm in pain imagining holding and hugging the same bodies that I held onto after we poured out of the church in confusion and stood on the lawns of houses while people ran back and forth all around us.
I will do anything to avoid this pain. I left my youth group not long after. I left my friends. I left my town. I left my state. I left it all. And I wonder now if I ever looked at this shooting again.
My counselor gave me homework in November of 2017: find someone you can tell your story to. All of it. Without measuring or posturing. As-is. As you experienced it and as you really feel about it now. I haven't done that still. The thought comes to me and I begin practicing what I will say. Then I feel overwhelmed. Ironically, though, it's not reliving the shooting itself that overwhelms me: it's the thought of reliving it in front of someone else.
It's no accident I am writing this here. It's all I can manage to do. The thought of being so intense, so emotional, so complicated, so messed up, so stubborn, so slow to heal, so unreasonable - in my mind, this amounts to someone who is essentially very difficult to love. I don't want to be unloveable. I don't want people to give up on me. I need them to stay. So my plan is to wait until this shooting makes sense to me, and then I will talk rationally, optimistically, joyfully - all of my shit sorted out just so. That is redemption. Someone who can talk about a shooting with composure, serenity, and wisdom.
It's obviously not working well for me. I'm ashamed of not having healed. Of being a mess. But I'm so tired of hiding as well. And so I think of my friends from way back when, from way back where, who share hope and healing and I hope wonderful things for them and for me. I am sad that I'm not there yet. But I'm here. I am talking. And I hope that is enough courage for today.