I Can't Do It

The January 8th Foundation... or Committee... or Memorial Planning Group..... or whatever the official title of the dedicated volunteers who are creating a remembrance of the response to the shootings in 2011.

At least, that's what I hope it is. 

I've attended parts of some of their meetings in the past.  I've never made it through an entire presentation.  It's not that the talks are dull; I don't have the emotional strength to sit through them.

My eyes dart around the room; I'm never more fearful than when we are all together.  I'm hot and then I'm cold and I'm never ever comfortable in the chairs... no matter if they are padded or upright stackable folding chairs.  I'm hungry then I'm thirsty then I just want to be gone.

It's not that I don't care about the issue.  I think it is that I care too much.

I don't do well in committees, unless I'm in charge.  Knowing this about myself, I've managed to absent myself from most responsibilities which would include sitting and talking with a disparate group of people tangentially related to the most significant event of my recent life..... and as you can see in that last sentence I have a very hard time coming up with a representation of what happened to me... to us.... to Tucson.... to all of us.

There are so many pieces.  No one else has my exact set of memories or experiences.  No one saw it from my vantage point.  And, I don't have anyone else's thoughts, either.  As TBG is fond of saying, the most important thing we've learned from all of this is that each person has a unique experience and no one else is capable of judging that experience. 

Some are communal.  Some are completely removed.  All will be represented by the collected memorabilia and something more ceremonial.  That something will be put out to bid and a committee will decide and there were so many opinions and I started to get that hot and fidgety feeling so I left the first meeting before any decisions were made. 

I have a low threshold for meetings, even when I know what I want to say.  The ambiguity of building a memorial to something that killed my little friend is hard for me to fathom.  I'd like to celebrate the after-math, the love, the selflessness, the healing and the bonding and the sense of being one.... before these kinds of things made Tucson old news. 

It has to be done and it will be done and I hope and pray that it is as wonderful as the Oklahoma City memorial.  I promise to love whatever they decide to do.  I promise.  I just don't want to be there right now.  The sun is out, my grandbaby is on the way, and I have a smile that I'd like to keep just where it is: plastered on my face as I remind myself that the sun came up and I was here to see it. 

By definition, it's a good day. I don't want to cloud it with sorrow.