Resilience

I’ve been writing this in my head for weeks. There’s actually a file called “writing” on my computer that’s well over 2,000 words, were I’ve started it several times. Each time is different. Sometimes the writing is fueled by anger, sometimes despair, sometimes exhaustion. It’s taken several weeks, but this is the first time I’ve…

One thing I learned in therapy during the last 8 months is when there is tragedy, no matter the cause, the emotional response is always the same. During Harvey I knew how the victims felt, not because our house flooded, but because I know what it feels like to loose everything suddenly. I know what…

I thought I was done with panic attacks. It really has been months since I last had one. If I think on them hard enough I can still feel the remnants of the feelings, they linger in my mind and in my heart. After a very full day of volunteering I received the following email.…

We spent five days sitting in our house waiting for tragedy. Honestly after you experience tragedy, there’s a part of you that’s always expecting it again. I watched people get off boats both in person and on TV and while most of them are smiling, there is an instant where there is a blank stare. It’s…

Bill and I had a big weekend planned this weekend exploring areas of our state we had never seen. We were going to spend Friday going to see the George W Bush Presidential Library and then spend the evening with friends in Bryan, TX. Saturday morning we were heading to Waco to see the mammoth…

Noise is hard. Drama is hard. One of my favorite TV shows is The Walking Dead. I have a slight fascination with zombie based lore. Our fire was on a Friday, the new season premiered two days later on Sunday. I haven’t been able to watch a single episode. Watching a show that places me…

I’ve had people reach out and say, “My friend/sister/dad/aunt experienced a fire today, what can I do? Where do they begin?” So we wrote this down as a small guide. This is a wild beast of a day. The best I can suggest is delegate. The Office Bag My mom, in her infinite wisdom the…

Days after the fire a family friend messaged me and let me know friends of hers had a bed and some other furniture they would like to give me. Days after the fire I couldn’t even comprehend buying underwear, much less what furniture we would need. My brain was broken, it didn’t function. I’m not…

When you write a nasty message to a company on Facebook at close to midnight remember that there is a human being on the other end managing that social media account that gets a ping to their phone. And then they read the message. And then they can’t sleep. Because they’ve had such a year…