I'm just gonna type and see where this goes...


Having one of those moments where I just need to get my thoughts down on paper (computer?) as it calms my nerves and allows me to vent. This whole Colorado Batman Shooting just hit me in a strange way. I constantly bitch and moan about the obnoxious people I see every day blocking handicap ramps with their cars so the old lady in the wheelchair can't get up the curb or the jerkoff who drives into oncoming traffic because he's was texing on his phone. But that's just plain stupidity, and sadly, we often just shrug it off because stupidity has become the norm. "Why did he just do that?" "Because he's an inconsiderate idiot." "Ohhh yeah..." But what happened in Colorado is something I can't really wrap my head around. The latest news I read about the shooting mentioned the youngest killed in the attack was a 6 year old girl and my heart just broke. 


6 years old. And she was shot and killed. Cause she went to go see Batman. 


It was nauseating to just type that. 


The girl's mother was shot in the throat and abdomen, was paralyzed in critical condition and was not informed of her daughter's death until later.


I guess when I first heard of the shooting the thought of small children being involved didn't enter my mind considering the movie was at midnight. Then I thought back to the experience at my midnight premiere. People of all ages, shapes, and sizes had all gathered together for a common love of something. I remember staring at the snake-like mass that seemed to wrap itself around two floors of a lobby and being overwhelmed at how awesome it was that we were all here for the same reasons. The "Sean of Old", as he will be referred, would think they were all a bunch of phonies, Holden Caulfield style. "These people don't like Batman like I like Batman," he'd shout. "They're just hopping on the comic book bandwagon!" Because back then I was a geek before being a geek was considered "cool." But I don't view things that way anymore and that night for me, seeing Batman on the big screen hit me on an emotional level for several different (personal) reasons which I will go into more detail in a future post. 


So who would have thought that a theater of people doing the exact same thing I was 1500 miles away would have such a tragic experience?


The moment it all became REAL to me was a screenshot someone posted of a woman's Twitter feed expressing her excitement to see Batman. A similar picture next to it was of a man, a friend of the woman, tweeting to her to see if she was OK. He had heard about the shooting, knew his friend was at that theater, and she was worried because she wasn't answering her phone.


There's reading the news articles of the people involved and then there's reading their actual Twitter feeds. The last thing the girl posted was "MOVIE DOESN'T START FOR 20 MINUTES." That was 3 days ago and it hasn't updated since. 


As a means of remembering her name, or seeing if family would post on her behalf, I added her to my Twitter even though I knew she was gone. The next day I saw actress Marlee Matlin recommend we all "follow" her on Twitter to show our support. Having already been following I was aware she had a decent number of followers but that number skyrocketed the past few days by 20,000. Even going from 27,500 to 28,004 just while typing this. Incredible. It doesn't seem like much but if I were one of her family members and I saw those numbers it would show me how much people actually cared.


Doing a little research, however, I found something rather disturbing and made me feel sick all over again. This woman, Jessica, was shot and killed in the theater just a MONTH after narrowly escaping another shooting at her local mall! What in the hell is going on here?! She's been in not one but two horrific gun incidents in the span of a month. Here is the link to her blog about the first shooting and her thoughts on the aftermath...


Jessica's Blog


Could you imagine surviving an experience like that only to have it happen all over again? 


I will never know what possesses people to do the things they do. All I know is that I live my life every day knowing I surround myself with great friends, an amazing family, and that no matter how bad life can get I  always have someone to turn to.


Not someone to turn on...