Do You Feel Safe?

Our world is troubled. Now that’s an understatement.

Our world is full of despair from war zones and conflicts. People who are forced to leave their homes to become refugees because they cannot stay. Innocents are put in prisons because they were born in the “wrong countries,” or for their skin color. Killer viruses and famine still has their grip in some places. There are shootings happening where innocent lives are lost.

Traumatic events happen every single day. Bad things happen to good people and even kids get caught up in events.

Why?

When will we say that enough is enough?

This is only what happens on the surface.

In public. Out in the open.

The news are broadcasting traumatic events 24/7.

Is it even possible to feel truly safe anymore?

Do you feel safe where you live?

We send our kids to school, and hope they will come home safe at the end of each day. We build alarmed fences and gates round our schools like prisons.

Yet, are our schools ever really safe?

We had a scare recently in my elementary school. The alarm went off and we went into lockdown. This early in the school year is a time for the kids to settle in after the summer, and get used to being back in the classroom. To focus on learning and being together. It should be a happy time.

Kids don’t want to be reminded about the unsafe world that we live in. I wish we could have let them have more time. More time to be kids.

Yet, the alarm rang. Its shrill volume, announcing that our safety school bubble world was under threat. We all followed protocol like we had practiced many times before.

It’s part of the school life and happens all the time. It shouldn’t be this way.

The kids were terrified. I saw real fear in their eyes. Trembling lips. The crying.

I cannot bear seeing scared children. It hurts me.

I'm sure it hurts all of us.

Children should not grow up terrified. They should be filled with laughter and wonder at our beautiful world.

No one should have to fear for their lives. Young or old. For any reason.

What can we do to make our world safe again? How can we rebuild what’s broken, so that our kids come home safe every day?

My school was lucky today. It was a false alarm. A lunatic was walking the streets in our district wearing a trench coat with a couple of toy guns.

It could have been so much worse.

I remember a time in the not so far distant past when I was a kid and went to school. There were no alarmed fences around the school. They were just fences that could easily be pried opened.

I played in the streets with my friends.

Life seemed so much slower and insular before the internet became what it is today.

As a trauma survivor, I’ve seen so much suffering and hurt. I wish it would all stop. I wish our world would start to heal, and for people to lay down their weapons and realize that we are all human beings. We all got into this world the same way.

Love.

All of us human beings were born out of love.

Yet, all we are doing is killing our planet and ourselves.

When will it stop?

My name is Lizzy. I’m a trauma survivor, a wife, a mom, a teacher, and an author.

If you like reading my posts, then please follow me.

For more about me: www.elizabethwoodsauthor.com

Support your fellow writer:

https://ko-fi.com/elizabe69245484