Well it turns out the Virginia Tech shooter is from my town. Well not my town because I live in a part of Virginia where we are not a town, but a county.

Anyway, this man lived here, shopped here, worked here. He is from a small part of the county that my son worked as a volunteer fireman on a regular basis.

When I was mugged in that grocery store parking lot, I was scared. I was rendered paralyzed by my fear.

I have spent the last 9 months trying to get past all the feelings I had about guns and trying to explain to those who knew me and might not understand why I had changed.

Today, I am not remotely scared or paralyzed. I am angry and I am done explaining.

Sure I am mad at this animal, but what good does that do. He is dead.

I am more mad at myself and that is good because, me, I can change.

Why I have been so dense as to waste one second, second guessing myself is beyond me, but I can tell you, there will not be one more post about me not wearing my gun or feeling self conscious or lamenting about what others think.

I am no longer trying to live in two worlds.

I am going shooting this weekend and I can promise you, I will not have any moral issues whatsoever, with shooting a target with a face.

I know why I felt the way I felt and that’s ok. Every bit of my life has made me who I am. The good, the bad, the traumatic.

I am glad that I didn’t just go from one extreme to the other.

I am glad that I have been deliberate about who I have become.

I am thankful that my journey has been slow and conscious. That I have taken the time to be aware and to know what it is I believe and why.

While I admit I still have much to learn, I am completely and totally over the guilt, the shame, the fear.

I will never again apologize or feel bad for doing everything I can to protect myself and my family.

Today has afforded me a rare opportunity to be lazy and catch up on all the cool gun blogs out there.  I went to one of my favorites and read about a neat fundraiser. 

There are some very cool prizes to include a gorgeous holster by another one of my favorites. 

It’s the holidays and it’s a time for giving, so maybe pop on over and give a little or a lot and you just might get something in return!!

I went to The Gun Blog Black List this morning and was clicking around on different links.

I clicked on the blog Troublesome Times and saw this.

I thought is was pretty funny.

Population of Blacksburg VA is 42,620.

There is nothing about either place that screams “be afraid, be very afraid” except of course that people live there and people can be, you know, mean.

Today in Blacksburg we had another shooting.

You may all remember the shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007(gun free zone, today we got round two.

In addition, today, I heard about alert an elementary school (gun free zone)was on lock down because a teacher saw a suspicious man, in dark clothing skulking around the school with binoculars.

In addition to those events, about 5 miles from my house, on the freeway I take nearly everyday,  a shooting incident took place and that has yet to be sorted out.

Today was not a great day.

While some people might think the tragedy at VT in 2007 was more tragic than what happened today, I completely disagree.

The numbers were greater and the sheer insanity of that day may be more memorable, but the lives lost are equal.

For me, anytime a bad guy gets free rein to do what he/she pleases with people who have been forced, by the law, to remain unarmed, is tragic.

Every single person I know who owns a gun is aware that having that gun is not a guarantee of anything more than a chance. With training, awareness and a little bit of “luck”, an armed citizen has a chance to fight back.

A chance to save their own life or the life of those around them.

There are times that, even with all that I know and all that I have learned, that I think about not wearing my gun.

Rarely, but there are still days that I think I look cute and am tempted to give into vanity or there are times when I worry about what someone might think if they knew I had a gun and there are still times that I think I might be giving into paranoia.

Fortunately, even when I have these thoughts, I shake my head like an etch-a-sketch, grab my holster and my gun and head out the door.

Not that I should need any reminders, but today, much like that day in March, these events make it patently clear that, I am not paranoid.

Unfortunately, I am all too aware of the evil that lurks, not only in my backyard, but in the front yard, and for me, at least once, right in front of my face.

Life requires more than a handgun or rifle to survive it. It demands that we pay attention. That we do not stick our heads in the sand and hope and pray that these things don’t happen to us or to people we know.

They happen all the time, everyday, everywhere, usually when we least expect and we owe it to ourselves, to our families, to our community, to our creator, to care enough to fight back.

To fight like…

our lives depend on it.

I have never been good at the details. I don’t know if it is my memory or just the way my brain works, but I don’t think in details. I am a big picture kind of gal.

I can know people for years and have no clue that they wear glasses or the color of their hair.

It has never really mattered to me because I have always focused more on the relationship.

What people think and feel, but now that I am hyper vilagent about maintaining my safety, I realize that has to change.

I have, for a while, tried to live my life being more aware. Looking around to see if anything seems out of place, see who is around me and just becoming more familiar with my surroundings.

All good, but I realized that if I ever want to be a good witness, I need to learn how to notice things about people and remember it.

I try to practice this when I am going about my everyday tasks. I look at people and then look away and try to remember things about them. Color of their shirt, color of their eyes and every so often when I am feeling cocky, I will try to see if I can find something unique or unusual about them.

Today as I walked out of Target, I saw a man who I was practicing on. I noticed that he was average height, short brown hair, not unattractive, but plain. I thought, I need to look closer to find something that would help the police identify him(not that he was doing anything wrong. He wasn’t. I was just practicing). So, I looked and I saw that he had an eagle keychain. I am not sure how useful or unique it was, but it certainly was something I never would have noticed before.

Unfortunately, this all took place in the parking lot as I was walking to me car and I was so tuned in to this innocent fellow shopper that I was not paying attention to anything else and almost got hit by a car backing out of their parking spot.

Now to practice mutli tasking.

I have been sick, my husband has been sick, all 4 of my kids have been sick.  I have visited the kids’ doctors 3 times and made a trip to urgent care twice.  The pharmacists and I are very good friends now.

That along with some unexpected things pop up for my husband at work, dealing with the holidays and all the regular stuff life has to offer, I have not had time to read any ones blog, let alone blog myself. 

I am playing catch up this week, but hopefully, I will get caught up with what is happening around the gun world and perhaps even share a thought or two myself.

Hoping everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!