today.

Sickness. Heartbreak. Curiosity. Hurt. Anger. Nausea. Pain. Sadness. Love. Fear. Anxiety. Dislike. Disgust. Surprise. Wonder. 

Just to name a few of the emotions I felt today. I honestly can't wrap my head around such a tragedy. Innocent lives were taken today, the majority of them were children, young children. My heart breaks for all of those affected by what happened today in Newtown, CT  and my thoughts and prayers are with them all today, tomorrow, and the years to come.

The news today made me think about a lot of things. Why? How could this happen? Who would do such a thing? But I kept coming back to the same question, What do we do now? This is not the first shooting to happen at a school, and unfortunately it most likely is not the last. What can we do to take the hate out of the world?

I am not a parent, but I consider myself the next closest thing, a teacher. I can not imagine what those teachers involved were thinking today. During my schooling (K-12) I have probably gone through at least 100 practice drills: fire drills, tornado drills, lock down drills, evacuation drills etc. Out of those 100 I probably took 1/4 of them seriously, if that. I was a child, I didn't think any of those things would happen to me and I always thought to myself "Why do we do these ALL the time?" 

Fast forward to 2011. It was my first year teaching EVER. We had a fire DRILL. I KNEW it was a drill, my kids KNEW it was a drill, but my first initial response was PANIC. Absolute panic. I was responsible for my 27 students. I was the one who was supposed to get them to a safe place. I had to know who was there and who wasn't and I needed to know where they were if they were missing. That was only a drill. 

Since then, I have done several fire drills and several lock down drills but that initial panic attack NEVER goes away. Today was a reminder why. It breaks my heart to think of those teachers today, to know that someone is located on your campus, who is there to harm your innocent, loving, adorable, cute, funny, sweet, and kind kiddos has to be the worst feeling in the world. To know that your decision could mean life or death for those babies. To not know the well being of any child outside your room. To have 20 plus students scared, asking questions, crying, screaming, etc. It breaks my heart, it simply breaks my heart. 


My heart is with not only the teachers, but the students, the ones whose lives were taken entirely too soon and the ones who lost the innocence of being a child today. My heart is with the families of those who had to endure the lost of a loved one and to those who had children and or family members who were on campus today.

I am blessed to be a teacher. I wouldn't want to be anything else. I am blessed to get to spend my day with my students. They are one of a kind. They continue to transform me into the person I am today. They love me, and I love them. I would do anything for them, absolutely anything. 

But, what are we going to do now? How do we move forward? How do we make ourselves feel safe again? I don't know the answer, and it breaks my heart.

- Kate