What's Next?

Update: I hate everything about this post, but I'm not going to delete it because that feels like lying somehow. For anyone who might be going back to read things, don't read this one. Skip it and read the Marathon Monday post or the one about the Bills or your Late 20's sucking.

Yesterday (Thursday) the FBI released pictures of the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing.
This morning, at 5:30am Jenna woke me up with news that one of the suspects had been killed along with an M.I.T. campus policeman, a 26 year old named named Sean. Suspect one is dead. Suspect two is on the loose.

Skip ahead a few hours and Boston is on lockdown. Twitter is sharing pictures of police snipers  on roofs, armored trucks rolling through the streets. Most of the city is shut down and people are scared. The only consolation at this point is this part of the debacle will most likely be over soon, the hardest part is who knows if we'll get any answers.

Jump to West Texas where a fertilizer plant exploded killing around 40 just two days ago.

Jump to Washington, D.C. where, despite incredible support from the American public, the Senate bi-partisanly put an end to talks of gun reform and background checks. President Obama called it a "sad day in Washington" and a "failure." 

Let's get something straight:

The last five days have been fucked up.

I apologize for my language, but everything else I typed didn't share the gravity.

I wanted to write thanking everyone who read and shared the last post I wrote regarding the Marathon Bombing. It was viewed over 1500 times in two days and I am still in awe of the response and how much people care.

I wanted to write asking people to help me. I was motivated, I was encouraged, I was excited to be sharing something with so many people! But I need help, too often it takes a disastrous event or a major life change to move me to words, and I do not want that to be the case.
What should I do?
How should I proceed?
Should I proceed?

I wanted to write and share the positivity that swept through the world despite the horrific events. Whether it was the Mr. Rogers quotes, the Patton Oswalt Facebook post I already shared, the Patton Oswalt Star Wars filibuster for that matter, George Carlin quotes, or blogs and retrospectives written by other individuals personally working their way through events (Here are two I've shared on Facebook from my good friends Kris and Justin). People stood up (or maybe sat down) and took the time to think, feel, and share their way through an awful moment in our history.

Hope was sought, some peace was found, love was shared.

Now how do we move on from this? Individually? Nationally? Politically? Peacefully?

In all honesty, most people will do exactly what they did after Newtown, Aurora, Oklahoma City and all the other sites of local terror, atrocity and death; they will use them as references in blogs, but move on with their life saying things like, "we should do something" or "something like that could happen right here" to "is our government going to do anything."

Well, in short, yes we should, yes it could, and no it isn't.

Our government is broken. I won't turn this into a political rant, but it is a fact that our elected officials are often elected because they raised the most money from special interest groups. Thus, they function on behalf of those groups. They are basically paid to be elected and as we saw with the gun control vote, despite 90% of public support, the officials elected to represent the public failed miserably.

It's sad. It's frustrating. It's seemingly and almost comically futile.

Most people will go on with their every day lives a little sadder, maybe a little more cautious. The folks in Boston and the families directly effected by these events in West, Texas, Newtown, Connecticut, etc. don't get off that easily. They will live with it every day, some for the rest of their lives. Most of us still ultimately feel safe when we go to bed. If you don't live in one of those places and you don't feel safe, give it a week or two, if you're honest with yourself you will most likely realize you haven't thought much about the bombings or shootings.

I don't have answers. I don't know what we can actually do. I want to start electing officials who are going to represent the people. I want to stop people from jumping to broad conclusions based on race, religion or even their relation to the Mason Dixon Line.

I want our country and our world to change, but I honestly don't have any idea how that is going to happen. I don't want to go on living my life without change, but what can we do?

Some people say the best way to combat events like this is to go on living your life. I agree, to a point, but living our every day lives typically ignores everything that is wrong with the world.

Man! I'm getting frustrated writing this, so it's time to take a step back ...

I don't believe we have the luxury of simply living our lives anymore. Maybe I should say we don't have the luxury of living our lives blindly or trusting that "they'll" take care of it.

I want to be challenged.
I want to be called out on my words and actions.
I want to be asked to help.
I want to be asked if we can make things better.
I want to make things better.
I want to reiterate some things I said in my last post...
I want to teach our children to think and be better people of the world. I don't want to stop there.
I want to teach myself, my friends, my parents, my world to be better.

I don't know how.

I want you to help me.

Many of us were not directly effected by the tragedies of the last 30 years. Most of us are thoughtful and conscientious enough to offer support and condolences, but that only goes so far. I haven't heard of anyone I know being physically injured by the events in Boston. Yet ...

All morning I have been reading Facebook and Twitter posts from people huddled in their Newton/Brighton/Watertown homes with the doors locked and their children scared. That feeling isn't going to go away anytime soon for those people. I hope beyond hope that their fear, uncertainty, and madness is met with swift resolution and replaced with action, love, support, and eventually peace of mind.

You might not be there.

The explosion at the fertilizer plant might not have been a terrorist event, but make no mistake that the survivors and the victims families are currently living in terror.

It is inevitable that, at some point, we will all be struck with tragedy, horror, or atrocity. That statement isn't meant to be disheartening, it is meant to be true. It is a fact of life that life isn't always good. Bad things happen to great people. That's okay. Without the bad we could never see the good and we could never fight against the darkness. We would never get the motivation of thought and consideration for life.

None of these events have been good.
Please, help me find the good in them. Help me find a path that leads to change.
Help me figure out what to write next.

I hope the next one is funny. Whatever I write, I hope it is funny. Not everyone agrees, but I think I'm pretty funny. Just don't read my post about Parson Brown... stick with the ones about being in your 20's or the Buffalo Bills... pretty much anything about the Bills is hilarious at this point.