That morning we drank leftover champagne on the rusty balcony of our hotel room. We watched people on the streets below us begin their Friday. A woman walked from the market cradling a loaf of bread in one arm, and a baby boy in the other, a suited man stood alone outside a jewelry store, and a proud mutt greeted his homeless owner under a nearby lamp post. It was all too normal.

Shortly after, with our bags packed and our tickets in hand, my boyfriend and I left for Gare de Lyon, France’s main train station. Fumbling two bags and a suitcase, drawing attention to myself was inevitable. The streets of Paris hummed with sounds of steel and steam, and the color of the sky dulled the city’s vivacity. Looking back now, I can’t help but wonder how close we came to any of you that day. Maybe our train passed yours as we were leaving the city and you were arriving. Maybe one of you looked out your window and watched me drag my suitcase along the uneven concrete toward the train station, noting my timeliness. Maybe I walked by one of you, and maybe we locked eyes for just half a second before naturally offering a soft, friendly smile.

We arrived in Dijon, a small town three hours outside of Paris, that afternoon. After settling in, we left for a bar to meet up with a few friends. It was there that we would eventually hear of the news later that night. Beginning at around 9:45 p.m., the news spread quickly, and the atmosphere in the bar immediately turned to one of fear, sadness, and utter shock as we watched the death count rise. By 10:30 p.m., the bar was nearly empty, and we walked back home through the desolate streets of Dijon. I wished I could go back in time just 12 hours and do something or say something to warn the city of what you were going to do that night, but instead, I had to lay awake in bed and try to fall asleep as you murdered people by the dozen, only three hours away from me.

What frightened me most about the whole situation was not your malicious nature or the fear for my own life and the lives of my family and friends, but rather, the fragility and vulnerability of the human mind that became obvious to me after the attack. For centuries, people have been striving to draw the line between moral and immoral, to define and instill what they believe is right and to condone what they believe is wrong. Unfortunately, human kind has not yet been able to come to a unilateral agreement regarding what is right and moral, which I think is a direct product of our own susceptibility to believe exactly what we are raised to believe. It is hard to distinguish the percentage in which our family, religion, experiences, education, society etc. shapes who we are and what we believe in, but I would bet it’s not far from 100 percent.

While I was raised to be accepting of everyone regardless of their ethnicity, religion, gender and sexual orientation, you were raised to believe that your way of life and your beliefs are right and true, while everyone else’s are wrong and should be put to rest. While I was raised to believe that murder of innocent civilians is immoral, and should not be condoned under any circumstances, you were raised to believe that murder is merely a means of achieving your ultimate goal of creating a single, global state under your interpretation of Islamic rule. Your actions are driven neither by depression nor by psychopathy, I understand that. Rather, they are driven by efforts to fight for what you were raised to believe is right and true. That being said, the attacks that you carried out in Paris the night of November 13, 2015 allowed me to realize how thankful I am to have been raised in a society that didn’t teach me to be close-minded and violent, and that doesn’t expect me to take my own life in an effort to kill those whose opinions differ from my own. I pity your outlook on life and look down on your close-minded beliefs, and I’m happy to say that your actions have only instilled in me greater appreciation that I am nothing like you, and never will be.