This is what it feels like.

And other things I tell myself in America.

I used to collect movie ticket stubs. By the time I graduated high school, I had accumulated hundreds of them. I never meant to keep them all, but I did, and I can still remember the floral, beaded jewelry box where they lived. I can still recall all those tiny pieces of paper that mapped out the schedule of a 14-year-old’s life. I can also still remember waking up on a Saturday afternoon and learning about the Aurora, Colorado mass shooting, can vividly recall sitting up in my childhood bed and reading a text about what had happened. I can remember my mom vacuuming in the hallway outside my bedroom as I realized the shooting happened at the midnight premiere of a movie, one I was planning on seeing that summer, too.

I was 19 then, probably home for summer break after my first year of college. Maybe this particular moment stuck with me because I had been considering going to the Friday, midnight premiere the night before, too. Maybe I had been out at a different movie that night. I pro…