So many people have said to me, "It's unbelievable that you are so calm, you have been so strong since it all happened." All I can say is that whatever it was that gave me strength at the beginning seems to have deserted me now. I continue to show this optimistic side in public, and when I'm with my friends, I am, in fact, genuinely happy. Once alone, however, I can't cope; I get listless, morose, and just want to fall apart. This is a side I don't wish my friends to see, they have done enough for me already, and it only serves to bring back their own pain.
Through my loneliness I am desperately searching for something new in my life, people who will lift me from this darkness. Life, however, is cruel, because when I try too hard to fulfill those dreams the attempts always seem fruitless. On the other hand, if the answer is staring me in the face, it is either invisible or untouchable. I often think how nice it would be to meet people who don't connect me with the shootings, just so that I can be relaxed and normal; to keep it a secret for a while at least and get to know them without that tragedy hanging over my head; to bring my conversation out of the frame of its recent existence and make me become aware of other things. In a way, I have come to rely on it to hold me up, socially. I feel almost vulnerable without it. What an awful thing to have as a social crutch. I can hide behind it all too easily.
