This Is Not Normal

An open letter to everyone who’s feeling this and everyone who’s pretending not to.

We spent this weekend overwhelmed.

Not because we were directly harmed. Not because we’re the ones most affected. We didn’t lose a loved one. We weren’t in the crowd when the gunshots rang out. And yet, we couldn’t focus. Couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t stop scrolling.

Maybe you felt it too. That sense that something deep in the foundation has cracked again.

And maybe, like us, you’ve tried to talk yourself out of it. You weren’t there. Other people have it worse. Isn’t this just how things are now?

But pain isn’t a competition. It doesn’t have to be exclusive. And just because this isn’t about you doesn’t mean it isn’t happening to you too.

Maybe it was the silence from people who should’ve said something. Maybe it was the headlines. Or maybe it was just the fact that this country keeps asking us to absorb the unthinkable and show up to work on Monday.

Grief isn’t always sharp. Sometimes it’s a weight. A blank page. A lump in your throat at the grocery store.

We’re mourning more than one person or one moment. We’re mourning the steady erosion of what we thought we could count on: safety, sanity, shared reality.

So we wanted to take a minute to speak to the people feeling all of it, however it’s landing.

To try to say:
You’re not imagining it.
You’re not overreacting.
And you’re not alone.

To our candidates, elected officials, employees, interns, and anyone who wants (or wanted) to work in politics

You got into this because you care. Because you saw how broken it all was and thought, maybe I could help fix it. You believed in good policy, in honest strategy, in making things better. You believed in public service, even when it didn’t feel very public or much like service.

You didn’t sign up for this thinking it would be easy, but maybe you didn’t expect it to feel quite this heavy, quite this often.

This weekend might have shaken something loose.

Maybe it was the moment you realized how close you are to the line: how thin the boundary is between your spreadsheet and someone’s worst day. Maybe it was the headlines. Or the silence. Or the weight of trying to do your job while it feels like the world is burning and your inbox still wants that print design by 3pm.

Maybe it made you question why you’re here at all.

You’re not alone in that. And here’s what we want you to know:

You don’t have to be okay right now.
You don’t have to turn this into fuel.
But also, you can.

Because we need you if you’re able to be with us. Not because politics will save us. But because the people trying to use it for good are the only reason it hasn’t swallowed us whole.

This moment is asking a lot. So take a breath. Cry if you need to. Step back if you have to.

But please, don’t give up.

We need more people in this work who are brave enough to feel everything and still come back tomorrow.

To the immigrant communities who feel like they’re next

You’ve already lived through so much. The paperwork, the waiting, the side-eyes, the feeling of being both essential and unwanted in the same breath. You’ve built lives here, families here, communities here and still, it feels like you’re always on thin ice, like safety is something you have to earn and still might not get.

This weekend has been another moment where fear settled into the background noise of daily life. You are scared to go to work or the store. You feel your chest tighten in crowds. You scroll the news with a pit in your stomach. You remember other moments, other headlines, where people just like you were told, in one way or another, that they didn’t belong. That they weren’t safe.

Like Caroline Dias Goncalves, a 19-year-old University of Utah student who was pulled over for a traffic stop in Colorado and ended up in ICE detention. No criminal record. No threat. Just a young woman driving to see family, now locked up in a cell with 17 others while her family begs for answers.

So if you’re feeling scared, angry, or invisible right now, you are not alone. You shouldn’t have to prove your worth or your innocence just to be safe. You shouldn’t have to explain to your children why some people are treated like threats, just for existing.

You are not a threat. You are not the problem.

And we are not giving up on you.

To the victims of gun violence and those living in fear of becoming one

You didn’t need this weekend to remind you. You were already thinking about it, in the grocery store, in the movie theater, at your kid’s school drop-off. You already had the exit strategy mapped out. You already have the quiet pact with yourself: stay near the edges, don’t run if everyone runs, don’t make a scene, don’t freeze.

And then it happens again. And again. And again.

And now your brain won’t stop looping through scenarios and what if’s.

This is not the world we should have to accept. And yet you’ve been asked to accept it over and over again. You’ve been asked to get used to it. To teach your kids how to play dead. To send them to school with a bulletproof backpack or receive the “I love you text”.

Let’s be clear: you shouldn’t have to be brave just to be alive.

If you’re tired, if you’re jumpy, if you cried over something small today and don’t totally know why, this is why.

You are not overreacting. You are not the only one living with a shared and generational trauma. You are reacting exactly how a human reacts in a world that keeps choosing guns over people.

And you deserve better.

To Afa Ah Loo’s family, friends, and community

We didn’t know Afa personally. But we wish we had.

We’ve read about his talent, his creativity, his kindness. We’ve seen the photos, his designs, his smile, his family. We know he was a husband, a father, a fashion designer, a person with a full, beautiful life. We know he came to the protest in peace. To stand up. To be present. To be counted.

And now he’s gone.

And what we want to say most of all is: we are so sorry.

Sorry that your grief is now public. Sorry that strangers are saying your loved one’s name without knowing who he was — us included. Sorry that what should have been just another Saturday became the worst day imaginable. Sorry that in this country, even a peaceful protest can end in sirens and blood.

Your loss is immense. And we won’t pretend that words can fix it.

We didn’t know Afa, but we know this: he should still be here. Laughing with his kids. Dreaming up his next project. Coming home from a protest to tell his family about it. Just living his life.

Instead, your family is planning a funeral. Instead, his name is in the news. And nothing about that is fair.

What happened should never have happened. And while we can’t undo it, we can refuse to look away. We can sit with the injustice. We can grieve with you. And we can fight like hell for a world where this isn’t the risk people take just by showing up.

If you’re in a place to help support his family, you can donate to this GoFundMe for his wife and children. Every bit of care matters.

To the marchers, organizers, staffers, and volunteers who are holding all of this

You gave your weekend to this. Your time, your energy, your body. You packed the water. You crafted the signs. You found the bullhorn in someone’s trunk. You made the graphics, ran the carpools, charged the mic, and made it as safe as you possibly could.

Some of you planned the whole thing. Some of you just showed up. All of you made it what it was.

You showed up. Not because it was safe, but because it mattered.

You marched. You chanted. You stood shoulder to shoulder with strangers who felt like more. You carried signs. You carried each other. You believed, if only for a moment, that your voice might shift something.

And it did.

There was joy. There was pride. That feeling of: we did something. We pulled it off. We showed what this place could be. We raised our voices and reminded each other we’re not alone.

And then the heartbreak came.

Now you’re holding all of it: the pride, the exhaustion, the logistics, the what-ifs, the unanswered texts, the aching feeling that maybe we shouldn’t have to do this at all.

But please know: you are the ones proving that courage isn’t the absence of fear, it’s moving through it anyway.

Across Utah and across the country, you turned out by the thousands. Some marches were joyful. Some were tense. Some ended in heartbreak. But every single one said: we’re still here. We still believe in something better.

You don’t have to be the strong one every second.

You’ve already done more than enough. You are enough.

To the people who don’t go to protests, but still care deeply

Maybe you watched from home. Maybe you wanted to be there, but couldn’t. Maybe crowds make you anxious. Maybe your immigration status makes it too risky. Maybe you’re a caregiver, or immunocompromised, or just didn’t feel safe.

You shouldn’t have to explain yourself.

Showing up looks different for everyone. And caring isn’t only measured in steps marched or signs held. Maybe you made bail fund donations. Maybe you sent water. Maybe you texted your friends to check in. Maybe you took a phone call from a scared attendee. Maybe you just sat with the heartbreak and refused to look away.

That counts.

Don’t let anyone make you feel like you’re not part of this just because you weren’t in the street. You are. The movement needs bodies, yes, but it also needs minds, hearts, hands, child care, rest, and resolve.

You are not less brave. You are not less committed. You are not too late to the fight.

To the parents trying to explain this to their kids

You wanted to shield them. You still do. You thought maybe you could keep their world a little softer, a little safer, a little longer. But then your child heard about the shootings. Or saw it online. Or asked why you looked so sad.

And suddenly, you were searching for words you shouldn’t have to find.

There’s no right way to parent through this. But if you’re feeling the heartbreak of trying to model hope when you barely have any left, know this: that effort is the hope.

You’re doing it. You’re showing them what care looks like. You’re showing them what courage looks like. You’re raising the kind of people who will know what to do when they grow up, because they watched you figure it out in real time.

It’s okay if you don’t have a perfect answer. It’s okay if you cried. They’ll remember that too.

You don’t have to raise them in a perfect world. You just have to raise them to want one.

To the people in the middle who feel abandoned by all of this

Maybe you’ve never loved either party. Maybe you don’t post about politics. Maybe you’ve been quietly hoping things would just calm down, that the temperature would drop, that we’d all go back to some version of normal.

And now this.

A targeted shooting. Political leaders and their families murdered in a country that always says “this couldn’t happen here”. And within 24 hours, our own U.S. Senator, Mike Lee, mocking it, calling for violence, posting jokes, spreading conspiracy theories, turning tragedy into Twitter trolling. And that’s the most generous interpretation.

It’s okay if you feel disoriented. Heartbroken. Angry. Disgusted. All of it is fair. Because what we’re living through isn’t politics as usual, it’s something darker. Something meaner. Something more dangerous. And you’re right to feel like you don’t recognize the world around you.

But here’s the good news: you’re not the only one feeling this way.

And you’re not powerless.

There’s a quiet majority of people, people like you, who believe in decency, fairness, safety, and sanity. Who want a country where disagreement doesn’t have to turn into dehumanization. We know you are out there.

We need you. Not to become something you’re not. But to stand up for what you already believe. Because the people driving the chaos are counting on your silence. Let’s not give them that.

To the people in law enforcement who still believe in public safety as public service

We know there’s a lot of tension around this conversation. And for good reason. But we also know there are good people in law enforcement who got into this work to help people. Who believe in showing up with courage, with care, with a commitment to protect, not escalate.

We know some of them personally. We’ve seen them on the hardest days, acting with steadiness, with training, with humanity. And we’ve seen how deeply it affects them, too. How bearing witness to tragedy can leave its own kind of scar.

And we know this weekend must have shaken something in you, too.

We can’t imagine what it’s like to wear a uniform that so many people distrust and still try to live by your principles and hold on to your humanity. To want to do the right thing in a system that doesn’t always make it easy. To show up every day to protect people, even the ones who hate you without ever knowing your name.

Here’s what we want to say: If you still believe public safety means keeping everyone safe, we need you. Not as enforcers. As protectors. As people with the courage to speak out against cruelty, to intervene when power is abused, to remember that peacekeeping doesn’t always mean standing still.

This moment isn’t just a test for politics. It’s a test for institutions. For people inside them who know the difference between order and justice.

So if you feel like the culture around you is drifting somewhere darker, you’re not imagining it. And you don’t have to go along with it.

If that’s you, thank you. And I hope you keep going. And I know we’re asking you to be brave, for all of us.

To the people who feel everything (and the ones who feel nothing at all)

Some of you are carrying it all. Every name, every headline, every thread. You’re feeling it for the immigrants, the protestors, the parents, the ones who ran, the ones who didn’t. It’s constant, and it’s crushing. You’re exhausted from caring this much but don’t know how to stop.

Others of you are numb. You scrolled past the news. You closed the tab. Not because you don’t care, but because your body hit the brakes before your brain could. That’s not apathy. That’s self-preservation.

Whether you’re raw or shut down or bouncing somewhere in between, it’s okay. None of this is normal, and your reaction doesn’t need to be either.

This country wasn’t built to hold this much grief. This much fear. This much pain. This much noise. So if you’re not okay right now, that just means you’re still in it.

We don’t have perfect advice. We’re in it too. This is just where we are putting the feelings today, because we didn’t know what else to do with them. Maybe you don’t either. That’s fine.

We don’t have to carry all of it. Just whatever piece is ours.

To everyone we didn’t speak to directly, this is for you too

We know this didn’t cover everything. We didn’t name every identity, every job, every ache. There are so many people holding pieces of this moment in ways we can’t fully see. If you’re carrying something right now—rage, sorrow, guilt, confusion, numbness—we hope you saw a piece of yourself here. And if you didn’t, that doesn’t mean we weren’t thinking of you.

This weekend was horrifying. But it wasn’t random. It came from a country that keeps escalating cruelty and calling it politics. From leaders who spread lies and then mock the aftermath. From systems that protect power more than people.

But it also came from a country full of people who keep showing up anyway.

People who organize and march and check on their friends. Who rage and rest and cry and call their representatives. Who still believe we can build something better, even when that belief feels really fucking hard.

No, this isn’t normal. And we won’t pretend it is.

We don’t have neat answers. We’re not writing this because we know what to do next. We’re writing this because we needed somewhere to put it all. Maybe you do too.

So take a breath. Take a beat. Take care of each other.

And when you’re ready, come find us.

We’re still here. Still hurting. Still trying.
Still trying to build something worth staying for.