On the Subject of Protection

demons are prowling everywhere nowadays
i'll send em howling, i don't care, i got ways
no one's gonna hurt you, no one's gonna dare
others can desert you, not to worry, whistle i'll be there...

On Thursday night, a man brought a gun into a City Hall meeting in the suburb right next to mine and started shooting. Six people were killed, and more were injured.

And while it's a tragedy in it's own right, and probaby deserving of a blog all on its own, it's not the subject of this one.

The first thing my dad said about it was, "Some asshole shot up City Hall."

It got me thinking, when is the exact moment our parents stop protecting us? I have to wonder about when my parents stopped caring about curfew, disregarded if I spent the night at a girl's house, gave up telling me I shouldn't watch R-rated movies. I'm not complaining, I appreciate that they trust me.

Yet I can't stop thinking about when they realized the world was too big and too dark to protect me from. I wonder about when they used to hold me in their arms, shield my eyes, when I lacked a thick enough skin to deal with any of it.

I was way too young to remember it now, and yet I miss it. I feel like I still need to be protected. I feel so vulnerable sometimes. I mean I'm almost seventeen; I'm not a child anymore, but that's not exactly old. I can't help feeling that we live in a scary world, and it's only going to get worse. And I realize my parents can't protect me from murder, from cancer or rape or any of that. But I miss when they tried...

Sometimes I just wish they'd take me aside and tell me, "Nothing's gonna harm you, not while I'm around."