Legacy
We grew up in the period between the expensive promise of hope and the cheap transaction of fear, with children taking bullets in their classrooms while we wore our bumper sticker politics on Facebook. We fought over which lives mattered. It was black and white. You were with us or with the enemy and truth died in negotiations. Never again and again and again again.
We were the children of the undiagnosed, of Vietnam Veterans who shut themselves down and their children up. We were unsupervised and uncouth; we didn't ask questions and we never knew our place. We invented a culture of disassociation and virtual connection. A million ways to communicate just so we could avoid talking to each other.
Bloodshed was rampant. We shot six-year olds in classrooms, gays in nightclubs, and country music festival goers. Synagogues, picnics, marathons, concerts. College campuses. Preschools. Hospitals. Train stations. You were dodging a bullet every time you left your house. Being in public, holding a job, being a parent was an exercise in Russian Roulette.
Until it wasn’t.
Laws never passed. Weaponry never confiscated. We walked and ran and carried signs for mental health awareness, but as woke as we were, we didn’t change anything.
We
Just
Got
Bored.
The endless coverage. The unshocking common displays of outrage and mourning and scripted response wasn’t interesting anymore. The shootings dwindled down when we were locked up and resumed like clockwork once we were set free.
We took our country back. And we couldn’t figure out what to do with it.