Just one of thousands of broken hearts

I'm surprised by how hard I am taking the recent shootings at VA Tech. I've been feeling a constant state of unease, even edginess to the point of fear ever since the killings occurred on that campus. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I work on a college campus and it seems so incredibly possible that a similar thing could happen here. There was an incident last year when an alum drove an SUV through a crowded part of our campus right near our building, intending to run people over. Thankfully, there were only a few injuries. But I still think about it from time to time.
It's also really close to home because I knew, even if only casually, a German teacher who was killed at VA Tech. Jamie Bishop used to work here at UNC at OASIS, the language labs, and the German department, and I had interacted with him a number of times in the course of our jobs. I know a lot of people who were close to him and I've had an intense reaction of empathy that brings me close to tears just thinking about their loss. I had met his wife, too, when she was a grad student here. My heart goes out to her - I don't know how she'll survive the pain.
Unintentionally, I find myself playing out scenarios in my mind of how I would react if a shooter came into our building. How would I alert everyone in my office? Where would be the best place to hide? Would I be brave and pro-active or would I be paralized with fear? I don't mean to, but I think about it dozens of times a day.
I've had restless nights and have been in an irritable mood this week. I almost blew up at a few coworkers and almost lashed out at my boss yesterday over something small.
Really I just want to go home, sleep soundly for a few hours, watch movies or non-news TV to distract me from my thoughts, eat comfort foods, and snuggle with my cats.
And I want this underlying nausea to go away.
One thing that has really moved me since the shootings has been how other communities have expressed their support. The chancellor here at UNC sent out an email to everyone on campus and closed with the words "Today, we are all Hokies."