rocked

I was in Nordstrom today. I was finishing what I call a "power shop" when I have a very limited amount of time (like 45 min start to finish) to get something very specific. Today it was tops, both casual and could-be-dressed-up to wear this winter.

I was at the checkout line, chatting with my super-helpful sales lady (the main reason I love Nordstrom, the sales people there rock) and congratulating myself for successfully getting 4 items, when a customer across the counter from us starts recounting the horror.

"Some reports of almost 30 dead," he says, shaking his head. "I heard many are kids."

My ears raised. "What happened?" I asked naively. My sales lady just shook her head.

Another salesperson helping that man said, "I heard he went in, killed the principal, then the vice principal, then the school counselor, then went into a kindergarten class and shot all the kids."

My stomach dropped. I thought I was going to puke on the saleslady. "Where?" was all I could muster.

"Delaware?" she said. "No, Connecticut."

I finished my transaction in a daze, and shakily made my way out of the store. Glancing around at everyone else, wondering if they knew. Wondering how they felt. Wondering if they carried a gun. Wondering if they too wanted to harm us all. All I wanted to do was get out of the crowds. Fast.

I've worked in education. I've been both an elementary and pre-school teacher. I've worked in mental health, in schools. I've worked in higher education, both in administration and teaching.

This is my world, the world I know. Safe places, or at least they were. Schools.

And now I'm a mom, of a kid that will be going to pre-school, then kindergarten. In a school. A supposedly safe place for her to learn and grow.

But now, still nauseasous from this horrid news, how can I let her go out in this fucked up world? What is wrong with people? Why, good lord, why would someone want to shoot kindergartners? What kind of world is this? How can my dear Critter be exposed to this? Be hurt by this?

I can't even begin to fathom where the parents are tonight. What they are doing, how they are surviving this. It has made me sick, physically sick. My heart aches for them, for the kids that survived, for those that bore witness to this absolute madness.

Tonight I am sad. Scared, too. Sad and scared for this world.