a bad day blogged about because

I've started over and rewritten this post, tried to write another one entirely, and then started again. It's no use. I can't write about anything else because this is what I'm thinking about.

If I'm being totally honest with this blog, yesterday something bad happened in the morning right outside my office and it sort shook me. It took 3 months to muster the sort of "city confidence" I've built to walk around the city alone and skirt around questionable people and areas without much thought. The city is just not something I grew up experiencing. The scarier sides are an extreme I've never seen in a cozy small college town. When I say it took a long time to become comfortable, I mean it took me a long time to feel safe.

Which was my problem, really. And truthfully, these kind of incidents can happen anywhere, even in my small hometown. It can happen at any time, at the building where you work or the street you walk on every day. I spent the morning feeling like I just wanted Idaho back and I wanted my internship to be over now. Walking across the street to the Post Office, I kept my head down and sped walked as fast as I could. I might have hated Seattle for a second.

My night turned the day upside down. I fell in love with the city again. I realized how silly I was. I realized how naive I was to think that I could ever feel 100% safe anywhere. I realized I hung onto that confidence for the sake of putting on a brave face because I'd been totally on my own first five weeks I was here. I felt like I had to feel confident or I'd crumble. No single place is perfect. And the things that Seattle has given me are so much more than a random act of violence. I saw the city from a new perspective, both literally and figuratively, and walked through it in the evening sunshine, tense at first, but slowly with more comfort. I walked back to my ferry stop slightly anxious but okay again. I got it back. I couldn't love this city more. It's a wonderful place not without its faults but it has a whole lot of positive things about it, too.

It was a bad day. But it was a lot worse for other people and in the end the person I feel worse for, is the one who did it.