GLENDALE, Ariz. - It has been five years since the horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School and I can remember exactly where I was when I heard about what had happened.
I was sitting at my desk at my former job and I was on Twitter when I started to see the awful tweets popping up. Then came the images. An elementary school campus surrounded by police with their weapons drawn. And then the images of small children quickly evacuating their school surrounded by police tape.
Twenty-six innocent lives were taken that day in a place where the issue of safety should never be questioned.
The images were too real and took me back to memories I had packed away in my mind, hoping I would never need to find them.
On October 24, 2000, I was sitting inside my eighth grade math class at Pioneer Elementary School when my entire outlook on life completely changed. My former classmate, who I am choosing not to name, walked into our classroom with a fully-loaded gun and held a room of about 30 students and our teacher hostage.
This happened almost a year and half after the massacre at Columbine High School, but as a kid growing up in Glendale, you never imagine something like that could happen to you.
When I think back on that day, certain details flash in my memory -- things I know I will remember for the rest of my life. I can still vaguely picture our classmate in fatigues with his face covered, standing at the front of the room. I remember being on the ground underneath my desk and glimpses of the metal chair legs and my friends starting to cry. I remember my classmate who crawled right next to me and was clinging onto my shirt.
It's hard to understand how to process that kind of experience as a teenager, but looking back as an adult, I realize how incredibly lucky I am that nobody was hurt.
It makes me angry when I think about how many school shootings have happened since my experience and all of the lives that have been taken away. It's not just the loved ones of those who are lost who feel the pain, but every single person who loses a sense of safety.
Two of my teenage cousins were at Aztec High School when a gunman took the lives of two students on Dec. 7. My family has now dealt with two cases of school violence and this must stop.
I have decided to share my story because I hope, at the very least, it makes people care. I am saddened by how quickly our society tends to move on from these shootings because, let's be honest, they happen too often.
My hope is we can move forward in a way that protects our schools, but what is the answer? I don't know. I wish I knew. All I know is something must happen to prevent any more students and teachers from being victims and we need to stop the arguing and fighting and instead move forward toward a reasonable solution.