a plea to you.

open your eyes and allow yourself to be aware of what is occuring.
things are not safe in kansas city.
there has always been crime.
but it is hitting too close to home.
places that i have never thought twice about navigating alone have become crime scenes involving two young women not so different from myself...one who has been in the hospital surviving a gun shot and one who was not so lucky. both attempted robberies.

devin. i cannot believe you are gone. even as i write this part of me just can't wrap my head around it. i just don't want to believe it. i had not run into you in a while but it was always such a pleasure when i did. i will always cherish the laughs. i will always remember that laugh and your smile and your socks. my heart goes out to your family...both your blood family and your friends. this could have been any of us and why it had to be you we will never know.
my promise to you is this- i promise to be safe. i promise to think twice about my surrounding and my actions. i promise to look out for my friends. i promise to not let this harden me, but make me more aware.
this city just isn't the same knowing i won't run into you.

and for the rest of us...
our friends and our instincts are all we can rely on at this point. we have both found ourselves in a group of people that think they own this city and the city is showing us otherwise. it will take us networking and making concessions and compromising in order to keep ourselves and those that we love safe. it will take my group of strong independent women taking a step back and realizing that all though we are strong and we are independent and we are self sufficient that we are still the target for this horrible crimes, simply because we are women. we need to run in packs, we need guys to walk us to our cars and as ridiculous as it sounds, we need to walk around holding mace out so that people know we are aware of what they want to do to us. we need to swallow our pride and ask that security guard or bouncer to walk us to our cars and if these are things we are not willing to make a part of the routine then we do not need to be going out.
there is no need to have another amazing woman injured or killed before we open our eyes to the reality of this world. we are blessed with so many things, but we are fools to think that no one wants to take that away from us.

please be safe. and don't forget to tell people you love them. you just never know...