I Wonder

15w 6d

2:19AM
Wide awake listening to Cesar's heavy breathing as he sleeps and dreams of something and Olivia's stomach growling as she is apparently dreaming of food. I cannot sleep - again. I am just lying here, watching the shadows of the trees move slowly across the ceiling, the light from the moon shining on my face through the break of the curtains.

I am tired, but can't get comfortable. My mind races in curves, on the edge of cliffs, twisting and turning never hitting the brakes. I think of a fellow alum Michael Underwood, someone who is a great volunteer and a really nice guy who was attacked last week and is now in a coma. Someone hit him with a heavy object on his head and stole his wallet. I think of the incidents of students getting robbed, jumped, a couple getting their teeth knocked out and head shaved by some homeless people. How all this has happened around where I work. How I am a little freaked out now since I walk to and from the train. Most of these incidents happened during the day. No time is safe.

I cry thinking of the 17 year old girl that got shot on the bus because two punks bumped into each other and started shooting. She was innocent in it all and shot in the head. Imagine how scared she must have been as she saw it going down. I saw her mother on the news crying asking someone to come forward. I have always felt bad and wondered why people do such crazy things, but this made me so sad. Imagine how much love you have for your baby already when it is just 6 weeks old in your womb. How much more you love your child when it is born, has a name, a face, a personality. To think that in an instance that could be taken all away. I can't contain myself.

Why are people this way? Why do people think that violence is the answer? I don't want my children to be fearful of the world for they need to experience it, but I also don't want them to be so trustworthy. I want them to make mistakes (and they will) because that's how they will grow, but not make such a horrible mistake that they grow up too fast. It's this balance that I don't know the formula to. I don't want to be too overprotective, but I don't want to hold them back.

I am not naive when it comes to violence. I have some very close people that have experienced traumatic moments by people they didn't know and I know people including myself that have experience traumatic moments by people we thought we could trust. However, lately it seems to be effecting me more. How am I suppose to protect my child from all of this? I know that I can't, but I have to as much as possible. I want to live in a world of change. A world in which good outweighs the bad and good people win. To provide my child a place in which they can grow and give back in a positive way because we chose to bring this child into the world and is it not our responsibility to raise respectful, caring and loving human beings that will stand up for what they believe in and try to make this world full of hatred and selfishness into something more? These kids on the street that take the lives of others like it was as easy as killing a bug - where are their parents? How were they raised? I know some "bad" kids actually change for the better. Hard lessons learned. But there are so many more that don't.

Thinking of the parents crying on the news, talking about their lost children, thinking of what kind of parent I will be as I lie here listening to the cars zoom by on this quiet night, I finally close my eyes and wish for sleep.