What’s the world coming to when, as soon as you wake up and flip on that blasted noise box, the news is on and rambling on about some shooting? Usually, like a good little girl of my generation that has been desensitized to the violence going on around me thanks to mass coverage, I ignore it and go on about my day. But, today it was different. Today, as I took a nice deep sip of my overly sweet coffee that I had put too much creamer into I was confronted for the first time in years with very real panic. The sounds on the television became nothing more than a muffled murmur, somewhere off in the distance that made my ears tingle in recognition but my brain didn’t want to listen. No, I had turned off and on in one single minute.

The reason, you might ask? There had been a shooting at the college most of my friend attend… At nine in the morning someone had opened fire into the main library of the University of Texas. That was all I had time to process before my phone had flung into my hands. Usually, and I seem to keep using this word but it fits here, I hate my phone. It connects me when I don’t want to see the outside world. When I’m alone in my hovel and tackatacking away on my keyboard until the late nights and early mornings I don’t like to be disturbed; I’m a hermit at my best, and an introvert bitch at my best. Though in this moment and time, it became my best friend and I was thanking god for the invention of cell phones.

Panic wasn’t a sensation I was used to. That metallic taste in your mouth like you just bit into your tongue, all the muscles bunching up on her back and a headache starting to bloom in front of your eyes, and a tingling sensation in the very tips of your brain. It was uncomfortable and my chest hurt, my heart was lodged in my throat and I felt like I was numb. I couldn’t count how many times my fingers slipped on the tiny little keyboard that was on my phone. Or how many times I swore at it like it was stopping me from getting a hold of my friends…

Panic gave way to rage almost instantly and it prickled its way down my entire body. It felt like something had broken over my scalp and while I waited to hear from my friends and family there were only a few words streamlining through my brain-a mind still deaf to the television in front of me. If any of my friends had been hurt, or worse killed, then whoever had did it and was still alive would soon wish they weren’t. My friends had been through thick and thin with me, through my darkest times and through my brightest moments, and they loved me all the same. There was an unconditional bond there. They were my family, brothers and sisters in arms to help defend against a world that seemed determined to hammer us all down.
It was when I got the first text and call back that I relaxed. My anger and fear filled haze lifted and the reporter talking on the television’s words broke through the cotton of my ears.

“There don’t seem to be any victims of the attack, the shooter killed himself and the university is being brought out of lockdown so that students and family can get back to their normal routine…”

It’s amazing how fast you can feel emotions. For so long I had ignored those sensations in favor of control, and all it took was one single moment to break that and bring me to my knees. I learned something about myself today; it’s something both terrifying and awe inspiring at the same time.