I didn’t sleep last night and as a result I feel awful today. I feel sick. I mean, I did also puke night before last. I feel bad. I feel like I want to freak out and scream and rage and throw things and break things and…

Ugh. I’m not doing that. I’m carping to Noah about how cranky I feel. I’m not taking it out on the kids. I just feel bad and I feel like I can’t get away from it because it is my whole body. I can’t tell how much of it is related to leaving California and all of my feelings there. I did not see any family members. I didn’t even see many friends. Just a couple. We saw a whole bunch of neighbors and people in the community we know–that part was nice. We know a lot of business owners and they will miss us. We are good customers.

But my mother. My nephew. My niece. Auntie. I don’t even know how to wrap my mind around the feelings I’m having.

I just know that in 18 days I will arrive at my home far far far away and I will never have to worry about seeing them again. It’s over. My anxiety can plummet, I hope.

I love my extended family. But I brought my children into the world and it is my responsibility to protect them from being abused.

I will run away. I will take my children with me. We will go somewhere new. Somewhere my children can go to school without fear of being shot in school.

The gun stuff is really getting to me. I have come to realize that several of the people I associate with probably have guns in their homes and I feel completely freaked out that I let my children go to their homes. I wish I hadn’t.

I don’t think I believe in “good people” with guns anymore. And that’s so dogmatic and absolute and a complete 180 from what I used to feel. I know people who have good reasons for guns. They have been stalked. Someone threatens their life.

But I don’t know. People deal with stuff like that in other places without having to have loosey goosey gun laws that result in more than 3,000 children dying from gun violence every year. Almost twice as many children die from being shot than die from cancer.

We choose this. We want to live in this system. We want these results. If we didn’t want this we would change our actions and we are absolutely unwilling to… which means we as a nation are totally ok with thousands of children dying every year so adults can play with their violent toys.

I feel sick. You want to feel super powerful. You want to feel like the “good guy/gal with the gun”. Only you are more likely to kill yourself or a kid than to ever effectively use the gun for protection.

Oh well.

I need to leave. I really do. This didn’t use to bother me the way it does now. But when I look at my children…

I can’t subject them to this.