The Dark Knight is crying...

Yesterday when I left work, I headed to Essex Cinemas for the Dark Knight Marathon, starting at 6:30, ending with the 12:05 am premier of The Dark Knight Rises.  I met friends and had a fantastic fun time.  I got home sometime after 3:30 am and went straight to bed.  When I got up this morning, I discovered the news of the shooting in Colorado at their 12:05 am viewing of the same film.

To say that I was stunned, shocked, and saddened is an understatement.  As I was watching the news on the Denver television station, the reality of what happened began to sink in to me.  It was all too close for comfort.

We watched the entire trilogy yesterday and the arc of the story really hit me to my core.  The character of Bruce Wayne was stripped down to his base, flawed, humanity - and was in such a place of darkness.  As the movies unfold, he confronts his fears and his flaws and moves forward with his life.  He goes from darkness into light.  It hit me how similar that followed my own progression over the past year.  Not unlike the character, I was lost and needed help to find my way out of the darkness that I had allowed myself to fall into.  With the help of my wonderful counselor, I am emerging into the light and feeling connected to myself for the first time in years.  I have a clearer vision of who I am and what I want from life.  Watching the end of the final film, I was in tears, feeling the connection to my own journey. 

Then, watching the reports from Aurora this morning, I was just shaken to my foundation.  I kept going back in my mind to being in the theatre. surrounded by 450 people all excited about the film, cheering each and every thing as the movie unfolded.  The idea of a crazy person walking in and opening fire on all of us, is something that is so surreal, yet I know it could happen.  Because it did happen.

I've been reading posts on the internet and hearing reporters talking about the film and how it may have contributed to this event happening.  And apparently the man who did this claimed that he was being The Joker. 

It breaks my heart that so many people are deflecting the issue onto the film.  Society needs to look at itself and how this young man could get to the point of doing such a horrendous thing.  And how was he able to get all the stuff he had to do this?  He was wearing fully body armour; he had high power automatic weapons; he had chemical cannisters - tear gas or something.  How the hell was he able to accumulate all that?  How did he get to the point in his mind where he would actually perform this horrendous act? 

It saddens me so much to think this young man only saw the violence in the Batman movies and wanted to emulate that. Why couldn't he see the message of the films - vigilante justice doesn't work. Even Batman realized he was only creating more of what he was trying to stop. But working with people, facing your fears, and seeing the light, you can accomplish anything.

Over the past few years, we've had the Columbine shootings, the Virginia Tech shootings, the shootings at the Jewish children's school in Toulouse France, the shootings in Norway, and the shootings at the primary school in Dunblane, Scotland.  That doesn't include the myriad of "smaller" events that happen all over the place.  What is happening to our society?

I've been crying off and on all day, thinking of the terror those people felt on a night that was supposed to be such fun for everyone.  Crying, thinking of the families of those people and unable to imagine their sense of loss. 

Somehow, I also think The Dark Knight would be crying too....

23 years....

23 years ago, also a Saturday, just before 6 a.m. I was aware that I heard the phone ring.  A few minutes later, my father was standing in the room with the news.  My mother had died. 

I was 26 years old.  Exactly one month prior, I walked out of the stage door of Whitman Hall at Brooklyn College having performed my recital for my degree.  I made the choice to return to Vermont as my mother’s long illness had progressed very quickly over the previous few months.  10 days after returning home, she entered the hospital and died 20 days later.

I’ve been thinking a great deal about how I still feel her loss so keenly.  We had just begun to reach that point in a mother/daughter relationship where it moves into a deep friendship.  I lost that as well as my mother.  I had also arrived at the moment of my life where I was finally coming into my own.  But with her death, I felt….stopped. 

And that is how I still feel today.  I have tried to write this blog for hours.  I keep writing about choices, emotions, hopes, etc…and it all sounds forced and self serving.

SO…Mother, I miss you terribly.  I know I’ve made choices in my life that took me on a different road than I was planning.  Some of that came about with losing you; losing your advice, support, and opinion. 

I am working hard to examine my choices and continue to move forward.  How I wish you were here to talk to…to give me advice.  I try to think what you would think or say, but I’ve lived almost as long without you as I did with you.  It’s hard to know what you would think anymore. 

I think I am making progress on my journey forward.  I think you would approve of some of my recent choices.  I feel more and more I am finally coming into “me”.  I hope you would like who I have become.

I love you, Mother. 

Respect

This rant has been a long time in coming...but after some things that happened today, it has finally become time to say it...

What is this overwhelming "me me me me me" thing?  It's everywhere and includes people of all ages.  I drive about 55 miles a day commuting to and from work.  I spend a great deal of that time being concerned about the crazy drivers who will do anything possible to gain a single car length because they are so much more important than anyone else on the road. 

I was in a store last week and witnessed a twenty-something guy yelling at the cashier because the register glitched.  He had to reswipe his credit card.  Oh, the horror...

A new "Five Guys" restaurant opened in our area a couple of weeks ago.  The line was out the door to place your order and then equally as long as we all waited for our food.  I watched 2 older ladies - probably in their 70's - jump the line.  No explanation, but walked in and shoved into the line to place their order.  The cashier didn't know what to do, but went ahead and took their order.  Then...they told the line cooks behind the counter to do their order first because they didn't want to wait.  When they wouldn't do that, the ladies stood there and bitched about how rude the cooks were.  Really?

Yes, really.  What the hell is going on with the world?  We have all become so completely obsessed with ourselves that we have no time or respect for anyone else.  The people who think it is perfectly acceptable to have private conversations (at the tope of their lungs!) on their cell phones as they walk about the grocery store; the people who think it is okay to yell at sales clerks because the store doesn't have exactly what they want; I just don't understand...

I realize I can be quilty of sometimes forgetting the person I am being cranky with is just the messenger.  Or I hang up on sales callers who won't let it go when I say "no thanks".  However, I try not to be too rude to them.  I know they are doing their job - as horrible as it is.

Every single person deserves respect.  We are all inhabiting the same planet and striving to survive and succeed.  I realize we can all be selfish at times, but I cannot abide the intensely superior attitude that is overtaking our society.  "I deserve..."  Right...We all deserve compassion and respect.  Just because you have some high paying job or letters after your name on your business cards does not make you better than me.

Sigh...I'm tired of being magnanimous in the face of rudeness and disrespect.  I just wish people would step back and look at their own behavior - and realize without the people they treat like crap...they would be in some serious crap of their own...

Rant over.  Thank you all for listening.