I've thought about writing this article many times but every single time I did, I would bring myself to tears. In just over a week I'll be on my way to college in a completely new place. I've lived in one place my whole entire life which is an extremely safe environment. Now I'm going to a new place and have no idea what to expect.

Every couple weeks I babysit a little girl about two years old. Recently whenever I've been babysitting I've realized her biggest worry was her parents leaving for a couple hours. She didn't have to worry about her brother dying because he's a cop or her other brother dying because he was saving someone else's life in a fire. She didn't have to worry about her friends having to get deployed and she didn't have to worry about oppression. Although I can say I haven't faced it, I've seen it.

After realizing this little girl has nothing this severe to worry about, my eyes have been opened to the real world. I see the hate that has led to an extreme amount of violence. What happened to when we were kids?

See, when we were kids we would fight and bicker but we wouldn't pull out a gun and kill each other. We weren't allowed to hurt each other. We were taught to love others as Jesus loves you and for some people that just means respecting each other no matter the circumstances.

When I was little I was oblivious to the terror going on around me. I didn't know anything about the wars that were going on, and I honestly had no idea who the heck Osama Bin Laden was. I don't really think I cared about all the violence, I really just wanted to play flashlight tag with my neighbors or hang out with my sisters. The most "violent" thing I ever experienced was running through the swings that were going back and forth and trying not to get hit. My life was filled with making up games like playing street hockey with one skate on and one shoe on. We were so oblivious to the world around us at one point or another.

So why can't we see everyone else as the innocent child they once were? Why can't we realize that we all were born with a clean slate? I couldn't tell you why and I couldn't tell you how but at some point in our lives we reach a point where we realize all the violence in the world is real. It's not just TV and it's not just what the media represents. It's real life and it's happening right in our neighborhoods. At that point our innocence is completely stripped from us and we're attracted to the war and violence going on. And we can't go back.