I. Am. Tired.

While my blog was broked, I wrote two entries addressing terrorism and violence and I'm tired.

Tired of what keeps happening. Even more tired of the certainty that it's going to happen again.

When it came to Orlando, this is what I wrote to my friends on Facebook...
I am so horribly selfish in times of crisis. Every time I try to grapple with the evils that men can do and the horrific cost that comes with it, I can only think of how crushed I would be if it were one of my friends that were taken from me. You mean everything to me, I love you, and I can't imagine my life without you. And then I remember that there are people right now facing exactly this, and my heart goes out to them. It's tough not to be blinded by hatred for those who make this world such a horrible place, but the love of my friends gets me through. If that's true for you too, I thought you should know what you mean to me. I don't say how much I love you often enough. None of us do.

Then, before I could even catch my breath, I was writing a blog post about Istanbul...
The terrorist attack on Istanbul's airport hit me hard... all the senseless violence hits me hard... but this one in particular was difficult for me to take. Back in 2007 I was flying out of Istanbul and was pulled aside for secondary screening at the airport. This is nothing new... I'm taken aside for secondary screening all the time. But this time I had horror stories of Turkish prisons filling my head, so it was a little different. There I was, being taken to a small dark room by three guys in uniform, all the while wondering if somebody had snuck something into my bag or if I was going to end up in jail for some reason. But it turns out to have been no big deal... all they did was pat me down and check my shoes. The room was more for my benefit than theirs, as I think they just wanted to spare me any embarrassment from public scrutiny (which was actually kind of considerate). The door was open the entire time, they were really nice and apologetic about the entire ordeal, and it took less than 5 minutes. I've had a lot worse from American security screenings.

And now I can't help but wonder if these three guys who were just showing up to do their job were injured or killed when the bombs went off.

I'm just so tired.