Our country has had another shooting. It made records, just like the one in Orlando. And San Bernadino before that.  And another before that. Every time it gets bloodier, harder. And yet, it just keeps happening. Now, I fear going to concerts. I worry about school, what might happen to my friends, or my sister, or my parents, who both dedicated their lives to teaching.

Sometimes, it gets so hard that we all just want to shut ourselves in and never come out. If we stay away from large crowds, if we don’t go to concerts and movie theaters and keep pretending that this could never happen to our school. We go through drills and shake our heads when another headline cuts through the news: Mass Shooting, Worst in History.

We can’t do that anymore. We can’t let these people, people who are so sick in the head that they feel the need to kill strangers, run our lives. We have to go to concerts and festivals, and see movies when they come out. We need to see them with our friends, and laugh and smile and spread good. Because that is what can help us, if only a little, while the government squabbles over what to actually do.

No, we should not put it out of our minds. We should take the drills seriously, be watchful when we’re out, call the police when something seems off. Little things can help. That’s all we can do. None of us have a foot in the Congressional door, none of us can write up laws to stop these things one way or another. So it doesn’t matter if you think that gun control is necessary or more guns would fix the problem.

All we have now is our love for one another. We can band together, remember the time in Orlando when people lined up around the block to donate blood. We can remember taxi drivers who drove people home for free after the shooting at an Ariana Grande concert. We can think of all the amazing first responders who come to the scene and handle the situation bravely every time.

We can go out and live our lives as they are meant to be lived.