From a vigil in Times Square (via Instagram)

I could recap the news for you, but the horror is well-known. I could list out statistics and rant and ask, "When is enough enough?" (Today may not have been the day to talk about gun control, as some have said. That's correct, because yesterday was when we should have had that conversation.) But I can't string any coherent thoughts together.

I can just say this: It is almost 2013. After today, I'll have sat in that newsroom for half a dozen mass shootings. I remember each day what happened--when I woke up, how I got the news, what I saw on our network and online, how long I was in the newsroom, how I got home... It never gets easier, you never really get numb from all this. Especially not today when you hear this one sentence, stated over and over: Of all of the victims, 20 dead were ages 5 through 10.

The night of the Aurora shooting, I was the last to leave the newsroom. It was just me, Keva, and Will, communicating via messenger in our different locations. When I did finally leave, it was late. I took a taxi home because I couldn't see myself making it on the subway, and--well, you know the story: I significantly freaked out the taxi driver by sobbing the entire drive home. He gave me a box of tissues. I went to my room and cried the rest of the night. (Granted, I was also going through my own unnecessary personal drama.)

Tonight, I saw the same thing happening, but am so grateful to have a nighttime editor in the same newsroom now, so I didn't have to endure it alone. And tonight, I was also so, so lucky to have someone bring me food and give me a hug and spend the night talking about everything.

And then there was a text from my mother. And IMs from friends. And reconciliation with another friend. And a message from the family of a person who kicked me out of his life. And tweets from people I've never met in person.

You forget sometimes to tell people you love them. It's easy to let people slip away. Sadly, it takes something unimaginable to become a reality before you remember.

Today, in one word, was horrifying. Perhaps, one day, we will not see this evil anymore.

Last week, God called one of his angels home. From yesterday's Sacramento Bee:

Many days [Roy McKnight] arrived at school before 5 a.m. He unlocked the building, turned on the lights, cleared debris from around the school and "made sure everything was safe and ready for the children," said extension director Patti Sanchez. He cleaned bathrooms, emptied trash cans, plugged leaks, set up tables for bake sales and built decorations for holiday celebrations.

"He went about his work very quietly. He just got things done," said Ramirez.

As the sun came up and students began to arrive, McKnight stood outside and greeted each child by name before they scampered past Ramirez and into the building. He inquired about their families, zipped their jackets and told them to have a good day.

At lunch and recess, he supervised the playground, often joining in games of tag and tetherball. He was fun and mischievous in his role as hall monitor, but a stickler about rules against running in the hallways and talking too loudly.

More than once, he came home with bumps and bruises "from getting hit with a ball or running into a wall while he was playing with the kids," said Calagno.

Roy really did remember every students' names, and their parents too. My dad still has really good memories of conversations with him before and after school, and Roy always remembered the little details of what they would talk about.

Roy always encouraged me to get off the bench at recess and play sports I didn't really want to play, and when I started losing my hair and stopped talking to people, he made the crueler kids stop picking on me and let me spend recesses with my books again.

He helped me put up my posters when I decided to run for student council and, after I won, he helped me put more recycling bins on the playground and fix the broken stall doors in the girl's bathroom.

Rest in peace, Roy--truly the "heart and soul" of St. Francis Elementary.

Friendsgiving 2012.

Thanksgiving was my favorite holiday growing up. It was a time when dozens of us would gather at my grandparents' house, in matching outfits when we were kids, and watch movies and laugh and eat. There was something simple and fun about the evening, something that set it apart from the other times we would gather to watch movies and laugh and eat.

Things were already changing when I left for college, but I knew that turning point would never be the same. I've missed four years of holidays and birthdays and other family events--from sicknesses to celebrations. Leaping across the country after graduation was another major step away from everyone I knew and who knew me.

Thanksgiving last year in Albany was lovely; this year, I wanted it to be just as wonderful here in the city. It truly was beyond any expectations, and I forgot how wonderful it was to spend time with people you never thought you'd be looking in the eye on a Thursday night and thinking, "I love them."

For the past month or two, I'd been feeling like New York was another dead end, a place I wanted to run away to only to be chased and hurt within the walls of my own home. I'd already run from the west coast, run from every place that held too many memories that cluttered my mind, and I was looking to start over. When that was taken from me here, I thought there would be nothing that could help ease me away from the stinging pain of loving back into the joyful pain of living.

The city is changing in a slow yet subtle way and I, with it, can only imagine a future where everything that once burned is now bright.

I think New Yorkers are more expressive than a lot of people because they're constantly having to deal with and confront their, and others', emotions. New Yorkers are used to living, working, breathing in a city that throws you into crowds with zero hesitation, and they never get a moment of privacy while they're out and about living their lives. That argument on the train, that tear-soaked confession on the sidewalk, that really funny moment in the park...it's all there, on display, and it's not just yours to enjoy; it belongs to the city.

I remember the first time I had a panic attack on the train. It was in the early days of moving to the city, and there was something overwhelming about the events in between work and my apartment, and I fought back tears so hard that I ended up blinding myself and having to let them loose anyways.


And nobody really noticed. One look around a subway car on any commute, and you'll see a thousand different emotions on the faces of the tired, the angry, the heartbroken, the joyful. It's not weird to sit on the subway and cry, and once in awhile, a kind stranger offers you a tissue or napkin to dry your face.

In California, people find sanctuary in their cars. You get inside and you turn up the music until whatever it is you're feeling subsides. People don't stand on sidewalks in California and cry like lost five-year-olds. I've stood on many sidewalks in New York and fallen apart. But so have a lot of people.

Earlier, after work, I got on the F to Brooklyn and immediately fell apart. Three seats down, there was another girl doing the exact same thing.

Living in New York has made me more emotional than I've ever been in my life. Through college, I was guarded (for many reasons), but there's something about this city that has forced me to open up. Perhaps it's the fact that the city literally fights its residents every day, with subway delays and other minor inconveniences that add up to a lot, until your soul splits open and your mind screams, "WAIT, but don't you know me??" Or maybe I've just changed so much from the person I was when I left California more than a year ago, and only now have I finally caught up to the pace of the world I live in. Or maybe it was the oddly-timed arrival of a shadowy figure who turned out to be nothing more than a metaphorical sledgehammer to my whole being (warning, friends: be careful who you trust to carry your deepest, darkest secrets) and left me with these thoughts to share, and nobody to share them with.

New York is supposed to exhaust you as much as it exhilarates you too. It's supposed to drain you and make you feel like you've given everything you have until you have no choice but to sit on a subway and cry. I think that's how you know you're doing it right: when the pangs of growing and changing, and the challenges associated with it, hit you over and over each day until you become numb, and then one day--somehow--you stand up a little bit taller and hit back.

I'll get there someday, I think.

Being cooped up for days, alone with nobody to talk to but a fluffy and fickle cat as a monstrous storm wrecks your city, makes you think. It makes you crazy to stare out of two walls of windows as day turns to night, and in that insanity, it makes you breathe creativity. At least, that's how it feels as a writer. All of those emotions and thoughts and visions pour out of your head and hover above your living room as you struggle to write it all down before it disappears. I am filled with more words now than I was just three days ago.

I've always said that New York City is a place that makes me want to write. It's a place filled with stories on every block, and I always feel inspired by the sights and the sounds.

As full as this city is, it's also isolating. I sat through Hurricane Sandy alone.

Every time an accident happens or some story on the news of a fatality arises, I think about how small I feel. Every time I'm asked to fill out an emergency contact in this city, I hesitate. Would anyone notice in this city if I didn't show up? Work, yes, but that's because it's work and they have to see me every day.

I didn't go to college here, or anywhere on this coast. The family I do have on the East Coast is too far away and too out of reach. My first three months in New York were quiet. I was broke anyways, so I had nowhere to go.

The funny thing about that solitary time was the perspective I gained: I knew eventually I would have people in my life in this city who were friends with whom I would love, inspire, laugh, celebrate, cry...and I was right. It doesn't matter that I don't have a vast spiderweb of contacts like I did in college, and it doesn't matter that someone very important to me promised, "I wouldn't move to New York and then just abandon you" and then did; what matters is that we find our people sooner or later. We find the ones we can grow with, the ones we can learn from, the ones we can lean on. We understand why it's important not to settle.

And, just as important as those who are 30 blocks or 30 minutes away, are the ones who are thousands of miles away and checking in to make sure you're alive during a hurricane--from family to best friends to friends I haven't heard from in a year or even a decade. I am blessed to have all of these people in my life, and I recognize how lucky I am.

So that makes it okay that I picked up and left my home state on my own. It's okay that I still feel unfamiliar. And it's okay that I lost a very important person along the way. Because I think it's noteworthy that, in leaving and in losing, I've pushed myself to become more open, more honest, and more resilient to the pain of living.

Cheers to my friends riding out the storm up and down the coast! We're surviving.