After everything that has happened over the past few weeks, I have finally been able to put my words onto paper. Still, I keep pausing and erasing because I know there are no words that will take away the pain and suffering of those parents that are going to wake up everyday for the rest of their lives knowing that their child was killed at school. There are no words that will help the survivors of the shooting make sense of the tragedy that ensued inside the building we are all told as children is "safe." We will all sit here for the next few weeks, months and years asking ourselves "why?" and searching for answers we may never find. The truth is there are no answers, there's just life.

Since there's just life, why are we sitting here waiting to see what will happen next time and claiming "there's nothing we can do?" How can we look ourselves in the face every morning when apathy is all we are capable of? The students from Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook and Marjory Stoneman Douglas deserve better than apathy, thoughts and prayers. They deserve action.

I don't know when we as a society became so selfish and only put ourselves first. I don't know when we stopped putting people before profits. I don't know when the news of seven year olds and fourteen year olds getting gunned down in a school building didn't make us weak at the knees. I don't know when the thought of parents waking up every day to the excruciatingly painful reminder that their child is dead didn't shatter us and make us want to be better. The truth is I may never understand how we changed and where we got lost along the way.

A few nights ago, I was watching one of my favorite shows, One Tree Hill, and the episode on television was the school shooting episode they filmed back in 2006. It may be the most raw, real and emotional episode of the entire series. However, what really draws me to this episode is it's ending scene because it contains one of my favorite quotes that is still applicable to this day.

"Does this darkness have a name? This cruelty this hatred. How did it find us, did it steal into our lives or did we seek it out and embrace it? What happened to us that we now send our children into the world like we send young men into war, hoping for their safe return but knowing some will be lost along the way. When did we lose our way? Consumed by the shadows, swallowed whole by the darkness. Does this darkness have a name...is it your name?" - Lucas Scott, One Tree Hill

I ask again, what happened to us and when did we lose our way? How do we find our way back? I don't know how we will find our way back, but I think it starts with being more human and letting go of some of our selfish habits. Today, I sit in movie theaters wondering if that loud noise outside is a gunshot. Sometimes at the gym, I look at the door and wonder if today is the day a shooter comes in and kills me. I sit at home wondering if tomorrow I will get a phone call that my little sisters are trapped inside their school with an active shooter.

I don't want to feel that way anymore. I don't want children to feel this way or to be constantly in fear of their lives. Let us honor the lives of those children who left this world too soon by taking action and fighting so that other children do not have to live through this again. Let us feel the pain of these families and find a way to decrease the amount of mass shootings there are in America. As the country that proclaims itself to be the most powerful in the world, we sure act powerless when it comes to creating sensible gun control laws. Let us ask ourselves how we can be better and how we can ensure that we are not the name of that darkness.