Well… 2022 has certainly been a year, and there’s still a little over a month left of it.

I’m not sure whether it’s been a good year or not (it’s certainly been way better than 2020, but 2020 is a pretty low bar). I just know that it’s been a year. I am beyond exhausted, and I’m not in the holiday spirit whatsoever. If anything, I just get grumpier and grumpier with each passing year. 

I’ve gone from being a shy but curious fox in 2018, to a grumpy little naked mole rat by 2020, to the insufferably pessimistic bobcat that I am today. Year by year, my faith in humanity dwindles, and I grow less patient (my lack of patience is something I wrestle with daily). All while the scale of human depravity (and stupidity) only grows. 

The weekend before Thanksgiving, another psycho with a gun attacked the only LGBTQ+ safe space in Colorado Springs. At least, Club Q was a safe space until a well-known wackjob with a gun (who, on paper, was barred from having access to firearms, and should’ve been in prison for kidnapping and a bomb threat they made in 2021), decided to turn it into yet another massacre site for some of the world’s most marginalized groups. Thankfully, the attack was stopped within minutes by a combat veteran and a woman who used her high heels to literally kick the brains out of the hate-filled scumbag, but not before the shooter took the lives of five people, and wounded twenty-five others. 

I wish I had answers and solutions to the problems that led up to that day, and every other day that a mass shooting and/or hate crime occurs (which is literally every day, in multiple places across the country and the world, at all hours of the day and night). I wish I could say that I am shocked by what happened. I wish I could say something like this will never happen again. 

But I’m not at all shocked that there was yet another mass shooting in this country. I know, damn well, that this shit will keep happening over and over again. Actually, it just happened again in Virginia as I was writing this piece. Seven people dead. Many more hospitalized. After a disgruntled manager opened fire in a Walmart during one of the busiest shopping times of the year; the night before Thanksgiving. 

I’m never surprised by how easy it is for so many people to act on their hate and disdain towards others. Humanity, at its core, has its roots steeped in hate and tribalism. Humanity, at its core, is full of sin and disdain. 

In the wake of mass tragedies like these, some people ask, “Where is our humanity,”, and my answer to that is, “This is our humanity.” 

Hatred and violence seem to be inherent to humanity. Love and gentleness seemingly are not. 

It’s a harsh truth that I’ve unfortunately learned the hard way from a very young age. Because I was born with Cystic Fibrosis and Autism (the ASD went undiagnosed for nineteen years), the kids around me knew that I was different, and therefore, they didn’t accept me like they accepted everyone else. Due to my illness, they were afraid of me; afraid that they could catch what I had. They didn’t know that Cystic Fibrosis wasn’t (and isn’t) contagious. All that they knew was I was getting my ass handed to me by something that always made me sick, and in turn, they feared me. 

Some kids responded to that fear by running away from me. Others responded to that fear by running at me, like I was a challenge they had to conquer to prove to their friends that they were the brave ones. Meanwhile, I was just trying to survive and communicate to the people around me what I was experiencing. Unfortunately, until I became much older and had the words to properly explain what I was experiencing, I couldn’t get away from it. I couldn’t explain to my parents what it was that made me hate and fear school so much, or why I struggled to make friends with my peers, or why I preferred to spend my time alone than with others. 

So, I reacted by being constantly afraid of every little damn thing, and desperately trying to hide from it. From kindergarten till middle school, I did everything I could to avoid going outside for recess, because I was afraid of the chaos of recess. In middle school through high school, I looked for the quietest corners of the lunch room to eat in, hoping that I could disappear into the background like a ghost and not attract any attention. By then, I’d learned that any and all attention I got from my peers was overwhelmingly negative and draining. Therefore, I wanted nothing to do with them. 

It was better to be lonely and forgotten than to be targeted for bullying and hatred by peers who thought it was “ballsy” to get close to “the sick kid” and risk catching CF. 

Nowadays, I can’t say my attitude has changed much. I’m less lonely, but not necessarily because I have more friends today than I did when I was in middle or high school. I’ve just gotten much more comfortable with being alone and cynical, and doing things on my own. After all, I've learned from a very early age that people can't be trusted. That the few people who exist who can be trusted are few and far between, and it often takes months or years to truly get to know a person and figure out if they can be trusted or not. 

I avoid busy places, not just because they are noisy and physically hurt me to be in (though, that’s a huge reason why I hate loud, crowded places). But because, like many Americans, I’m pretty nervous about the possibility of getting trapped in another “random” act of violence and hate. And, that worry of being trapped in another "random" act of violence is only getting worse and closer to home. 

Just before Thanksgiving (and when I thought I was done with this piece), a cousin of mine was caught in the crossfire of a random shootout while delivering packages somewhere around Seattle, Washington. Thankfully, he's okay. But, he witnessed everything and was nearly shot himself. There were bullet holes in the side of his delivery truck, mere inches away from where he was when the shootout started. 

Then, on Black Friday, Dad and I decided to brave the crowds in search of Christmas gifts at Cabela's. I headed for the firearms section in hopes that there would be rounds for my .243 still left on the shelves. Well, unsurprisingly, pretty much the entire selection of bullets was picked clean, and the wait to talk to a clerk at the gun counter was an hour long. Of those in that Cabela's, at least one in ten customers were open-carrying, and I bet there were even more who were concealed carrying. And it seemed like everyone there was about as nervous as a squirrel in an open field. 

In short, that run to Cabela's wasn't nearly as fun or fruitful as I hoped it would be. I was really hoping I could finally purchase a pump-action shotgun for bird and buck hunting, as well as grab a few boxes of Winchester 90-grain .243 rounds for my rifle (for the last three years, I've saved up many gift cards, points, and, of course, cash for such a purchase). But, instead I arrived and found myself in the midst of a frenzy of gun-nuts and doomsday preppers, rushing about empty shelves once containing boxes of ammo that have quadrupled in value since 2020.

So, I bought a new pair of hiking boots and some Yaktrax instead, and got the fuck out of dodge before I felt too panicky. 

Black Friday or not, it seems like Cabela's is always a madhouse these days...