Going Off The Rails On a Crazy Train

Today there is no quest for happiness on my part. There is only the question why?!

This will not be one of my usual posts where I try to find humor in something or at least convey a situation that may not be humorous in a comical way. The voices in my head are screaming today and there is not enough white noise in the world to shut them up.

There was a shooting last night at FSU. Another shooting at a school; what the hell. What has transformed the minds of so many Americans that now the only answer to anyone’s pain or anger is to use a gun? I don’t understand it at all.

Every mass shooting I hear about makes me die a little inside as I wonder what has happened to our values and why we have gotten on some downward spiral into anarchy. Actually I know the answer, but it isn’t ‘politically correct’ so I will keep it to myself. Being ‘PC’ has also started to make me crazy because it has taken on a life of its own and it seems that no one is allowed to have an opinion anymore – unless it is also the opinion of whoever you are talking to. God forbid we ‘agree to disagree.’

This shooting hit me the hardest however because I live near FSU. It is just too close to home. I work at a small university that is about 30 minutes from FSU and my son goes to UGA.  I am too close geographically to the latest incident and my son is too geographically far away from me. So, we are both at schools and they seem to be escalating to #1 on the hit list.

My job is to collect tuition and fees. I am the one that gets all the angry phone calls from students and parents telling me I am wrong – that they don’t owe money – when I am right. So many times, even when I try to explain it calmly, the situation escalates; on the phone and in person. I have had to tell people ‘that I will never be able to tell them what they want to hear’ – literally. That never ends well. I have had to tell people that I will not talk to them until they calm down or until they stop cursing. The venom can be spewed at me for as little as $10. It has happened. It seems that hardly anyone is able to think rationally anymore – or do math.

I honestly wonder every day if I will go home that night. I wonder will I have made the wrong person angry. You just never know anymore.

I also wonder every day about my son at UGA. Will he be in the wrong place at the wrong time when someone loses their mind and wants to kill innocent people for no other reason than they are ‘hurting?”  How is that the answer to whatever pain they are in??!!

The news showed videos this morning that students had taken and streamed to their station. One was of a group of students huddling by the book shelves as the announcement played over the loud speaker about how there had been a shooting and what they were supposed to do. All I could think of during the video was what if Austin was one of those students? I am not the type of person that cries – ever. This made me cry.

It also made me think about when my daughter was at college and a tornado came through the town. Her call, from another person’s phone because she had to run to safety and she didn’t pick up her own phone, scared the living daylights out of me. She was fine, the town was not. But even so, I didn’t sleep for days. I still worry about her every day in Atlanta. Atlanta is a big, crazy city full of the same dangers.

But, I understand weather and what causes things like tornados (but it doesn’t mean I like them), conversely, this type of mentality – the shooting mentality – I DO NOT understand.

I grow tired of wondering everyday if this will be my last day on earth because someone else can’t cope. I am scared for the rest of my family. It seems no place is safe anymore and I hate that.

We are literally living the Ozzy Osbourne chorus of “Crazy Train”, and I am ready to get off.