What repercussions have you had in your life as a result of 'Columbine'?

What repercussions have you had in your life as a result of 'Columbine'?

What repercussions....?

I've been asked this question I don't know how many times since April 20, 1999.

Given that I've been having more interactions with other school massacre survivors here of late, I decided to reprise this blog post I originally wrote March 29, 2017 in response to a question in a series of questions asked of me by a then 16 year old student from Medellin, Columbia.

We all tend to share our own personal tragedies and trauma with each other from our own personal perspectives. That's simply a statement of fact. I'm no different in that regard.

With that, here's what I wrote back then:

Another tough one, for sure....tough from a perspective of whether or not I really want to answer it.

After all, dredging up old and sometimes very unpleasant memories of that stuff along with all the good things that have happened (there are many) and trying to keep them separate from each other knowing full well they are inexorably intertwined with each other, poses a serious personal risk, a risk of going into a state of depression, a funk so to speak, that I've already experienced and don't ever want to experience again!

Whether I want to admit it or not, just looking at the wording of the question causes me some anxiety....unpleasant anxiety.

All of this is part and parcel of the positive and negative energies that swirl around each and every one of us every single day of our lives. Those energies can tend to overlap and intertwine themselves in one's own psyche. These tendencies also help each of us determine how we approach our own healing journeys.

In that vein, after having spent most of last evening and most of this morning writing, deleting, revising, and then crumpling up into a metaphorical wad most of what I'd written and metaphorically tossing it across the room hoping to hit a metaphorical wastebasket, I've decided that keeping my own musings, both of a positive and a negative nature, relegated to my own personal journal is going to have to suffice as my answer to this question.

For those looking for something more than this, I suggest doing a simple Google search of 'Columbine' or of 'Hochhalter' or of 'Zocco-Hochhalter' to help satisfy your curiosity. There's a lot of information out there, some of which is fairly accurate and a lot of which is definitely not.

That's just the nature of the aftermath of 'Columbine'. Sad, but true.

I still struggle mightily with how to respond to the question that prompted this blog post to this day. It's hard. It's actually beyond hard. It sometimes does take me down that road I mentioned in the original text regarding serious personal risk even if I don't want to admit it to myself.

Please don't misunderstand. Life is good. Emotions sometimes vacillate though. I guess it's all part and parcel of life's ups and downs. And that's the way I try very hard to look at things. 

My two cents.

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