60 and 28

It had not been long since I arrived home from work. I was relaxing a little and toying with the idea of ditching my workout. I was doing double electronics duty playing games on my iPad and halfway following the usual end of day catch up between my my running buddies in our group text when I saw the words "Did you see what happened in Instanbul?" from my friend Juliet. "Yes, very sad," Danielle responded.

"Reading now," I typed. A queasy anxiousness settled in my tummy while I entered "Istanbul" on my iPad.  I did a quick sweep of the first story, skimming the article to get the basics of what happened.  "Suicide bombers" "outside the airport terminal" "chaos" "at least 60 injured" "28 dead"...I stopped reading.

I asked my husband if he'd heard the news about Istanbul And he hadn't  - no surprise there as he'd spent the day nursing his wounds from a tumble he took on Friday.

Anyway, he asked me what happened and I told him.

"Suicide bomber," I said, as I shook my head and made the same clucking sound my mother and grandmother made to show disgust (among other things).

"How many dead?"  he asked.

"60 injured and 28 dead," I responded.

He made a little "humph" sound, shaking his head in the same slow motion I had done earlier, then walked walked away.

Just like that our conversation was over. In seconds.

I picked up my iPad and my phone again and continued what I was doing before.

Then, it hit me.

I recall my grandparents watching the television as the news of terrorist attacks broke. There was no CNN then, no 24 hour news outlets. Every channel stopped their programming to broadcast emergency updates. My grandfather would watch the news so long that my grandmother would get up, clucking and fussing in disgust. She couldn't take watching so much pain and didn't see the point of watching it over and over again. I remember being fixated on the grainy images...Ireland, London, the thrwarted American Airlines hijacking, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Belgium, a second (failed) American Airlines hijack attempt, Italy, Germany, France, Kenya...

I remember shivering in fear - tears spilling down my face no matter how I tried to hold them back. My grandfather reassured me that most of these places were far away. That didn't stop the crying. I was so sad when they showed the kids that lost their parents and the parents that lost their kids. But eventually, and for a few years, I believed my Grampy that those bad things didn't happen here. I held the same false sense of security that many Americans still hold today.

As I grew older and started tuning into the news myself, I became painfully aware of the reality.  The CIA shooting, the first World Trade Center attack, the murders of the women's clinic doctors, Ted Kaczynski's  ( "Unabomber") attacks, the Brooklyn Bridge shooting, Oklahoma, the Olympic bombing, the Jewish Community Center shooting, and the Empire State Building shooting all occurred during my twenties and they all occurred on American soil. I would sit, terrified, watching the news of each of these events unfold with the same disbelief and panic I felt as a kid.

Somewhere along the way, it seems I've been numbed and didn't even realize it. The events happen so fast, so frequently. The media coverage is so immediate. I am no longer surprised by these attacks, no matter where they are. I expect them.  I accept them as part of this cruel cruel world. I pause; I read (skim);  I tune in then tune out; I shake my head; I cluck in disgust; I'm numb.

I don't know how long it took for those horrible people to carry out such a ruthless attack that took lives and changed countless more forever.

 I do know it only took me and my husband less than a minute to discuss it and move on with shakes of our head.

I do know that those people and their families deserve more from me. Not just in Istanbul, but all of them.

So tonight, I'm allowing the anesthesia to wear off, I'm accepting the pain and the fear, and swallowing the waves of nausea that rise up as I look at my daughter and my husband and think of all those people who lost people they love.

I'm pretty sure that going numb is a coping mechanism. I'm pretty sure I'll never be numb again.