Imagine that you are an American college student studying abroad in Paris, France. It's a Friday night and you've just finished at your babysitting job. You're looking forward to your plans of going out for dinner with some of your school friends after a long day of class directly followed by work (and a long week at that). Feeling free--and starving--you make the long commute from the house where you babysit to the supposedly awesome pizza place you planned on meeting your friends at. Everyone laughs and talks and enjoys themselves, just like every time you are around these people. So far your Friday night is perfect.
After dinner, you collectively decide to head somewhere for a drink or two. Not to get too crazy (like you guys have on some other Friday nights) but just to relax and wind down the evening. Some of your friends in the group suggest walking to a nearby area in the city called Gare du Nord, because that's supposedly where a lot of good bars are. It's a ten to fifteen minute walk away, but one of your friends protests that she doesn't want to walk that far, and you can't help but be in agreement. So you all go to a closer bar, one that is relatively small but has seating and a TV. One of your friends decides to go home early but the other five of you sit around the table after ordering your beers to stay and chat for a while.
Suddenly a news report on the TV catches your attention. Reports are breaking out of explosions and shootings happening in various areas of Paris. You and your friends are shocked and intently watch for more details. At first, the reports don't seem extremely serious, certainly not as serious as a terrorist attack. To you it initially only looks like only one location is under attack and there is just one person with a gun causing the commotion (and not a whole group of violent extremists). Still, you all decide it is better to be safe then sorry and therefore promptly leave the bar to head home.
You're not too frightened at first when you all walk outside because you are with four other people and it doesn't seem as if the location of the incident is close by. You're all debating on the best means of transportation to get back to your home--the metro is easier, but it seems the bus would be safer, so that's what you settle with. Upon walking to the nearest bus station you guys find that the next bus comes in 12 minutes. You really have to pee and don't want to wait that long so you decide that gives you enough time to run into the KFC across the street. However when you exit the KFC and meet up with your friends again it turns out the bus came early and you guys missed it. So then everyone collectively agrees upon taking the metro, except your one friend, who leaves because she'd feel safer biking home (you personally think she's crazy for taking that risk but to each their own).
While walking to the metro station, your other friends, from news updates on their phones and from loved ones getting in contact with them, find out that the violence is not coming from just one perpetrator--there are multiple people committing it, in various locations around the city. Then you see a large crowd of people running, appearing panicked and as though they're running away from something. That's when it hits you that you are definitely closer to the violence than you'd thought. You and your friends begin running as well until you reach the metro but don't see anything in the direction from which the people were running. Much to your dismay and anxiety though, the metro is not running... and apparently neither are taxis because they're all full, or Uber because it's over capacity. Your remaining friends decide it would be best to just walk down to the river until you reach a bus station there that is working.
It's a long walk but it works and none of you get harmed in the process (though that doesn't stop your own anxiety from skyrocketing the whole time). You and your two friends that live in the school housing with you first take the bus in the opposite direction with your other friend to make sure she gets home safely, then the remaining three of you switch to the tram to head back to your housing. It's during the transit time when you all, through continuing to receive updates on your phones, find out that the violence is still ensuing, and is actually terrorist attacks--much, much more dire than you'd expected.
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Paris is very safe now as high security measures have been taken since. But it is because 158 people are dead. I still can't believe I was in the vicinity of such horror. Hell, I still can't believe it even happened... Yet at the same time I can, because the world is a frightening place. It just takes some people a while to witness that for themselves.
The scariest part for me though is that when I got together with my friends again the next day I found out we'd been way closer to one or two of the attack sites than I'd believed--Google Maps said it was a few blocks and a ten minute walk between them and where we were. We'd been in the 11th arrondissement (division) of Paris and the attacks happened in the 10th. I'd known they were going on in the 10th, but did not know we were that close to it.
Thank God my one friend spoke up that she didn't want to walk to Gare du Nord.
On that tram ride home I had to borrow my friend's phone to use an app to call my family (I can't on my own phone since I don't have an international plan) because my other friend had heard from staff at our school that my parents were freaking out to them about my safety and I didn't have wifi access all day to contact them so they hadn't heard from me. I had to reassure my mom multiple times that yes, I was fine, yes, she was really hearing my voice, yes, I was completely safe in my housing and far away from the attacks. When I got home and had wifi again I was flooded with text messages, Facebook notifications and emails from family and friends concerned for my safety. I was up pretty much all night talking to people, reading information online about the events, and simply because I couldn't sleep. Not only due to being afraid for my own life but horrified for those who had already lost theirs, or were more at risk than me.
The weekend was stressful for all of us. I'm still lowkey, a bit anxious to go anywhere outside on my own. But I realize how fortunate I am that that's all I have to be anxious about, that I even have a life to still be anxious about, that I am still alive and unharmed.
I still don't understand why some people think they need to harm innocent people. Does it make them feel better about themselves to take someone else's life? Do they hope to gain respect? I don't think I will ever understand. Fuck ISIS. Fuck terrorism.
But I did come to learn a lot of other things from this night. To appreciate all the people showing they care about me and little things in my life that I may not have thought of before. Don't let fear consume you because that's exactly what those kinds of people want. I became more self-aware--this is the first time I was ever so close to such violence, and France may not experience it very often, but this is what people in less fortunate areas of the world like Syria and other Middle Eastern countries go through all the time. And most importantly, to thank God for how lucky I am--even more than before.
But by all means continue to keep the city and the victims of the attacks in your thoughts and prayers. I know I am. I knew from the moment I stepped off the plane that this city would always have a place in my heart, but now all these innocent people who died will too. Just earlier this week some friends and I went to some of the restaurants that were attacked as well as Republique (a famous memorial/protest site in Paris) to pay our respects.
Paris is known as the city of love, and love triumphs over everything. So, give it all the love you can give right now!
“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins.” -1 Peter 4:8
Reste forte, Paris. Mes pensées et mes prières, et surtout mon amour, sont toujours avec vous!
