The Cut - Life After Parkland

I will not tell you my triggers, or the things I can no longer enjoy, because they are fluid and changing. Sometimes I look up at a sky with no clouds and all I can think of is how that was what the sky looked like on the day of the shooting, but sometimes I just think, I wish there were clouds because it’s so, so, so hot.

The strangest part of being a survivor was how badly strangers wanted to touch me, like I was a living relic. They’d shake my hand, or hug me, or lean on me to cry. They also wanted to tell me about the tragedies that touched them. So many voices saying how their loved ones had been gruesomely shot and killed. I’m an empathetic person, and I had no idea how to guard myself, how to turn away and toward myself. So I listened and I hugged these strangers back. Only months earlier, none of these people knew who I was. I was just a high-school kid in Parkland.

Happy New Year and welcome back! We missed you. Did you see all the weird ways people tried to sneak guns and drugs past the TSA in 2022? In other air-travel news, you should seriously consider using a luggage tracker if you aren’t already. On January 1, Oregon became the first state to allow adult use of magic mushrooms. Speaking of which, in 2023, resolve to hide your stash better — more and more kids are accidentally ingesting edibles. David Byrne doing David Bowie with Miley Cyrus is good. A helpful guide to donating to nonprofits. And scammers gonna scam.

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