It's Just Stuff

for those of you who are new to this page; welcome!

for those of you who are willin to give me another chance; thanks!

2017 was a roller coaster of a ride for me, to say the very least. i tried to restart (again) this blogging thing but alas, life got the better of me (again). so here i am, again. in my defense, it really was a wild ride of a year - i became an auntie twice, continued datin, stopped goin to my long-time church, got engaged, began to plan for a wedding, went to visit my fiance', survived 2 category 5 hurricanes, left my job, and tried to locate to the states. 

whew!

currently, i'm really back at square one with a lot of things in my life because, well, life happens. people change, things don't go the way we hoped for or expected them to and you can either continue to cry over it or you can try to pick up the remainin pieces of your life and see how to get them to fit again. if i'm gonna be honest, i'm kinda doin both right now. aside from the passing and subsequent aftermath of the strongest storm in the history of the atlantic hurricane seasons, things were bad, but didn't seem impossible to recover from. i guess in reality, i was numb from the whole experience. in hindsight that's exactly what happened and even though i thought i was normal, i really wasn't. jus takin things one day at a time wasn't enough to heal the trauma of the situations and the survival mood that you're shifted into when somethin like that happens to you. homes were destroyed, families were altered, lives were lost . . .  and the home i had was no longer the home i knew anymore. it had changed and was different. i had changed. and i am different. 

my mom and i were livin together before the first storm. we rode that beast out together, holdin each other while singin and prayin under my sister's mattress in the inner bathroom as the world we knew came crashin down around us. the three story buildin we lived in shook with the force of the wind whippin around inside and out. all the glass windows were blown out; the cabinets in the kitchen were torn off and all the plates and cups and spices and everythin else were swirlin in the tornado of our kitchen. the fridge was jammed into the hallway and blocked our path through the front door. we tried three times to leave out the back way from my sister's bedroom but by the time we made it down to the second level the passageway of those apartments made it impossible for us to get past the wind and rain and debris funnelin through. so we returned and waited, listenin to the walls creak and groan, feelin the floor quakin beneath our bodies on the floor. it felt like forever.

and then it was gone.

Irma passed.  but she also took. when we realized that it was over and finally came outside, all we could do was thank God that we had been spared. to see the devastation, the destruction, the damage . . . never in my wildest dreams would i have been able to imagine what i saw. the crazy part of all this is that this was not my first hurricane experience.i had been through Hugo in '89; Marilyn in '95. but this, this was not real to me. this couldn't have happened. but it did.

and then came Maria. what Irma didn't finish, Maria completed. people with no roofs were now flooded out. the last little bit of shelter or belongings you may have had were finally gone. it was hard to really tell what Maria had really done so soon off the heels of Irma, but we didn't need to see it. we felt it. the dread in your blood hearin the wind again. the ice in the pit of your stomach at the sound of the rain fallin. we didn't need to see what Maria could do. we were still in shock over Irma. 

then you have to figure out how to pick up the pieces. if you can find them. my mom and i spent the daylight hours after Irma sortin through plaster that had fallin from the ceilin and pickin up glass from the windows. we swept and mopped and pulled and pushed and hauled out the bits and pieces of furniture and sheet rock and damaged household items while we could see. once the sun set, we heated water on the stove with the gas so we could rinse off in the shower. we ate our small dinner and then went to sleep listenin to the only radio station that was still on the air. it was usually no later than six in the evenin. at sunrise, we would start over, goin from room to room, tryin to sort things out. and then we heard Maria was on her way. my brother was concerned about our safety so he insisted we come and stay with him and his family until the second storm had passed. we didn't leave until December. it was nice to have some semblance of normalcy stayin at my brother's. he had a generator so we had some lights and runnin water. we were able to have cool beverages and maybe a movie or two from his laptop. we played board games and cards and laughed and talked and joked with one another. we did things like "normal" families would. and it felt good to be able to have that in spite of everythin that was still goin on to rebuild and restore. 

i left my job because of unforeseen complications with my health as a result of the storms. but i was able to use my time to get things done for my mom or other family members and friends who still had to go to work durin the curfew hours. i could go to the stores or stand in the long long long lines to pick up meds or check the mail or whatever needed to be done before things shut down for the night. and there was a peace of mind about bein useful. of bein helpful and jus bein there in whatever way i could.

things have become less complicated for me since all of this. and i've relearned how to appreciate the simple things again. before Irma arrived my mom and i were scurryin around our apartment tryin to secure stuff so it would be safe. and in the midst of that, a still small voice said to me "it's jus stuff"
i guess that's sorta become a daily matra: It's Just Stuff

i've been tryin to enjoy more time with my family and with myself. i can hear God's voice a little bit clearer now that i'm not as consumed by what i do or do not have. i was never really overly concerned with things, now find that there are things i don't even miss. those storms have shown me the truly important things. and honestly, they're not things at all . . .