I'm a city girl. I love the city of Philadelphia where I was born. I didn't think I could learn to love another city until I moved to Washington D.C. when I entered my freshman year of College. I just love the flow of city life, even if some people argue that it isn't the safest.

I am now a Sophomore at The Catholic University of America. It is a beautiful campus, bigger than it seems, right in the heart of Brookland, Washington D.C. Ok, yeah so Brookland definitely isn't the safest place in D.C, especially if you stray a little off campus. But I swear there hasn't been a day on campus that I've never felt safe. Actually, I take that back. This past week was the first time in my college experience that I actually didn't feel safe. It was the first time I was told to "Shelter in Place." And sadly, it wasn't the last time.

No classes on Tuesday. You know what that meant? I could stay up a little later and hang out with my friends a little longer on Monday night. At around 10:30, I left campus with three of my girlfriends to go to our friend's apartment. As we were walking there, we noticed a lot of cop cars and even heard an alarm. We didn't think much of it, it's not like that is necessarily uncommon in Brookland. As my friends and I were getting ready to walk back to campus, I stopped them after I checked Snapchat. I saw a couple of people's SnapStories of pictures of tweets on the CUA twitter. At 12:59 a.m. Tuesday, a tweet was posted, "If you are on or around #CUA campus, shelter in place. MPD and DPS are responding to potential armed suspect." Maybe someone from Brookland wandered onto the wrong part of town? Maybe it was just a misunderstanding? Whatever the case, I didn't think it was that serious. Not until all of our parents received the phone call about this potential armed suspect and called us all up.

I wasn't worried yet. It could be a million things. But then my best friends were crying and upset, so I started to cry and I was upset. At that moment, I just wanted to go back and be in my bed, not off campus (even though it was probably safer) wondering what was actually happening.The wait was killing us and we had so many unanswered questions. It wasn't until 2:44 a.m. on Tuesday Morning that the campus was deemed safe and the shelter in place was lifted. For safety purposes, we stayed at our friend's apartment until about 7 a.m. then headed back to campus. I couldn't really sleep that night because I was afraid. However, when I experienced our campus on Tuesday, I realized everything was back to normal and we would be just fine.

I slept most of Tuesday because I didn't really get sleep the night before. On Tuesday night I had a dinner for my Humanities class. All the sections were invited to eat dinner and discuss book topics in this giant auditorium in one of our buildings. I was just about ready to get going when I got a call from one of my roommates. I denied it because I was still at the dinner, asked what was up, then checked my texts and saw three texts from three different friends saying how we had another shelter in place. I honestly thought that it was a sick joke. Then, almost in unison, everybody in the room got a call from the school announcing the second shelter in place. Immediately I called my mom and told her I was safe in the auditorium. I was shaking a little, but I thought I would be fine. It wasn't until an officer came into the building telling our teachers that we needed to move downstairs to the basement to be safe when I started freaking out. As I was moving to the basement, I called my mom and told her I might not get service but I would try to contact her. I told her I was afraid and I started to cry. As she held back tears, she told me she was scared too but she loved me and she knew CUA would do everything to keep us safe. Then I saw in a basement in the dark for two hours in the comfort of some friends who tried to help me stay calm.

Social media spreads like wildfire, and there were so many rumors. Some people said shots were fired, some people said there were multiple suspects. So you can imagine that while you are waiting in a dark basement saying prayers with a priest who just came to bless you, hearing these types of rumors are not reassuring. Eventually, the second shelter in place was lifted and I ran back to my dorm and hopped in bed after I cried to all of my best friends who weren't there with me.

What we do know: the second shelter in place was precautionary because a cop thought he saw the initial suspect. There were no shots fired and there weren't multiple suspects. On the first night, a custodial man was approached by a tall middle eastern man who was armed with a weapon and claimed allegiance to a terrorist group. But as of now, we are completely safe and our school is doing everything to ensure that.

Thankfully, no one was hurt and ultimately we were safe the entire time these two shelters in place occurred. But the trauma that many experienced is very real. It is important for people to realize that while no actual physical harm was done to anyone, it was still very emotionally taxing. Everybody's experience with this situation was different. Some people were asleep while it happened while others were at the bottom of a basement with no lights on. I am here to say that anxiety with this stuff exists, and I still freak out when I hear sirens.

I always here about this kind of stuff happening on the news, but experiencing it firsthand is something completely different. I cannot explain how grateful and blessed I am to have been completely safe during this unsettling time. It is a harsh reality that we have to deal with these types of things in the modern world, but it is a gentle reminder that we must keep on, even after these traumatic events. This holiday season I hope the students of CUA find peace and comfort and count the blessings that we realized we have and have had during this rough week.