Most people who know me know that my friends and I have recently had....quite the experience while visiting California. And thus I have had several people asking me about it, wanting to know the details.
While I am so grateful to know that there are so many people that care about me, I honestly hate retelling the story over and over.
I just want to forget the whole thing ever happened.
But alas, I cannot.
In fact, I found that it has been impossible to get it out of my head.
No matter how badly I want to.
So I've decided to try killing two birds with one stone.
The birds being: people want to know what happened, and I need to try to get it all out so I can move on; the stone being: this post.
So. Here's the story.
Two of my best friends (Tiffany and Hannah) share a birthday. August 22nd. We've never been able to celebrate their birthdays together before, so we decided this was the year to do it. After spending the weekend in Portland for our friend Sarah's wedding, we headed off to spend the week in California at Hannah's house in Roseville. We got up early on Wednesday to head out to start the birthday celebrations! I slept like a rock in the backseat the whole way there. Our first stop was the Oakland temple. Both Tiffany's and Hannah's parents were married there, and Tiff had never been, so it was a fun way to start off the day.
Then we headed off to San Fran! We found a place to park, and got on a bus to take us down to where all the exciting stuff was.
Once we made it, we walked all around....Fisherman's Wharf, Ghirardelli Square, Ripley's Believe It Or Not, Boudin's for lunch, Chinatown, Lombard Street.....we looked into taking the tour of Alcatraz, but they were fully booked :(
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| Oakland, CA temple |
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| Trying to figure out where we were going, while Tiff sits next to a man who was less than enthusiastic about our presence... |
So basically, we had a great day! It was seriously such a great time. I mean, what could be better than spending a day of carefree fun in a big city with two of your best friends on their birthdays?
We were getting done at Chinatown when Hannah's friend, Jonas, called to meet up with us. He works not too far outside of the city, so we had decided to meet up and go to dinner or something.
He made it to the city, and picked us up (since we were pretty far from our car), and we went to go find the Japanese Tea Gardens, in Golden Gate Park. Well, we got there, but the gardens were closed. So we just walked around the area for a little while, until we decided it was time to eat. We took off, and Jonas dropped us off at our car...where me and Tiffany became our obnoxious selves while we left Hannah and Jonas to decide what our plans would be.
Apparently we couldn't decide where to eat, so we were just going to follow Jonas. He was the hungriest, so we figured we'd just stop and eat wherever he decided. So we took off for the freeway...we drove for a little while, then finally got off on Cesar Chavez Street. It was a pretty sketchy looking area, and we were joking about how we were going to get shot here, wondering why Jonas decided this was a good place to stop.
It was around 9:00, when he pulled into a gas station and parked at the end of the lot, so we pulled up on his left side and rolled down our windows so we could chat. We talked for a little while about our options, and had basically decided to just go our separate ways and find food on our own, when "it" happened. First of all, let me set up the scene for you....Hannah was in the driver's seat, Tiffany was sitting shotgun, and I had the backseat, middle, feet on the hump (thank you, Brian Regan). Tiffany was on her phone, sort of looking down, and I think Hannah and Jonas were still just talking, so I was the only one who saw it coming.
Two men came around the corner of the gas station...the first one had a bandana over his face, but all I could see was the gun pointed right at us. I barely even noticed the second guy. All I could think was, "That's a gun. He's pointing a gun at us. This can't be real..." It literally felt like I was watching a movie. I tried soo hard to say something, to tell the others what was happening, but I was completely, 100% frozen. Hannah later told me that she could hear me mumbling something...but then they were suddenly right there, yelling at us to give them our purses. I turned to my left to get at the little black purse I had been using all day, because I was going to try to quickly get my cash and debit card out before I gave him my purse. But then as I turned around to hand it to him, I saw that the second guy had pulled himself into the car through the window, just long enough to grab mine and Hannah's purses that were on the seat next to me. Then suddenly they were gone, and we took off.
Hannah drove us down the street where Jonas had gone, but that is also the direction the criminals had gone, so me and Tiff (mostly Tiff) calmly directed Hannah to back up and drive back to the freeway. Now, normally in a situation like this, I would be the calm one helping everyone stay relaxed. But Tiffany was in the front seat guiding Hannah through, and was doing great...so what I would normally be doing was already being done, so I was just left in the backseat to process what happened. I called my mom, who told me that we needed to call the police, which Tiffany heard, so she called them on Hannah's phone (because her phone had been taken). After I got off the phone with my mom, I handed my phone up front so they could call their families and such.
As all this was happening, it started to hit me what had just happened....and I lost it. I just broke down and started crying. If you know me at all, you know that I am a dry well who very, very rarely cries. And not even my best friends had ever seen me cry before.
So this was quite a big deal.
And I couldn't stop.
Tiffany was trying to comfort me, reaching back to me, holding on to me, which I am so grateful for.
After several phone calls and getting lost, we finally made it to the police station. We were all positively shaking by the time we got there. They took down our information and had us list everything that was taken. For me, the two main things that I was (and still am...) so sad about were my purse that I had just gotten in Chinatown in New York a few weeks before, and my journal. My journal had contained everything from the past four years of my life. It had started my first semester of college, and I was just finishing up writing about my last tour. It still make me sick to my stomach to think about it.
Then they had us relive the experience for them, to give them as many details as we could. So it was here that I learned a little bit more...like how the first guy ripped Tiffany's phone out of her hand and took her bag as well. And that the criminals were screaming at us the entire time. I apparently had gone temporarily deaf, because I only heard them scream once, maybe twice. And that Jonas had yelled Tiffany's name a few times before he peeled out and took off. I also heard none of that.
I think my body had gone into shock mode pretty quickly.
So we finished up at the police station, they walked us out to our car, and we headed off for home. We even ran a few stoplights on our way to the freeway, because there was no traffic and we were terrified. We did have to stop for gas, but we waited until we found a place that was well lit and had more people around. Then we were finally on a straight shot to Hannah's house. By the time we got there, we had all taken our turns breaking down. I was trying to sit as far forward as I could so I didn't have to feel like I was by myself in the backseat. We talked about what had happened for pretty much the whole drive. Then we finally made it home.
Hannah's family had all stayed up to welcome us home, giving us all hugs and saying that they were sorry that that happened to us, and how grateful they were that we were okay. I was so grateful that they were there. Even though they're not actually my family, it felt close enough. And I am so grateful that we weren't driving back to an empty apartment like we would have if we were up at school.
We stayed up for probably at least another hour talking about the whole incident. I didn't think I would ever be able to sleep again, but by the time my head hit the pillow, I realized how exhausting the whole ordeal had been.
Sometimes I still imagine what could have happened if we hadn't been so blessed.
Someone could have been shot.
They could have pulled Hannah out of the driver's seat and drove off with me and Tiff.
The second guy could have pulled me out of the backseat along with the purses.
If we had gotten out of the car to talk to Jonas, there are so many other things that could have happened.
In the end, I know that we have so many things to be grateful for.
None of us had been harmed.
All they took was "stuff".
Stuff can be replaced.
Even if my journal is irreplaceable, I have since received great comfort in knowing that I will have those memories restored to me in the next life.
We are all definitely still scarred and traumatized from the whole experience.
But it happened, and now we're doing our best to move on.
And I just want you to know how difficult it has been to write about this. It's taken me about two or three weeks to do it. And normally after I write a post, I go back through and check to see if it makes sense and such.
But I just really don't want to this time.
So if there's anything grammatically incorrect...I apologize.
But I'm just going to have to ask you to put up with it.
I love you all!
