The Stupid Game...

Since the hurricane, I'm not gonna lie, my emotions have been like a roller coaster. There are times when I can be as strong as a rock and can talk about Gilchrist and my home and the devastation that happened like I was a stoic reporter not talking about my personal things. Then there are days like today. Days when I realized I lost a single item in my house and it rips my heart to shreds and all the pent up emotion that I've been trying to stop comes out like a flood. Tonight, I was thinking what I was going to wear tomorrow, and I thought, OH! My FAVORITE green sweat pants. And then I stopped in my tracks and realized the last place I saw them. I had done laundry not two days before the hurricane and I had just put everything away. I can remember them in the second drawer on the right folded right on top because I knew I would be wearing them as soon as I got home again. But of course, we know how that game ends. I never got to go home again.

I have to go to Gilchrist on Monday to retrieve something that reminds me of what I used to have. I had these broken concrete step stones that my Grandmother could no longer sell at the Shell Shop because they were damaged. They had been lying in my yard since I got the house and I decided to make use of them. I meticulously pieced the broken parts together and placed them in a walkway in my yard. They are the only thing left that even hints to what used to lie on that piece of land. My grandfather has hired someone to clear our lots and I have to get back before those get taken away too. I hate going back because in my head, my home still exists. In my head, my couch with my paper lanterns behind it still exist. My first piece of furniture that I bought in college is still under my table. My bed is perfectly made, waiting for me to lie in it and listen to the ocean mixed with heavy trucks passing during the night. It's almost as if time stopped on September 11th, 2008. The images of how I tore up my house to get things off the walls and off the floor so water wouldn't damage them does not exist. The fact that I can stand at 2007 Highway 87 and not see my house doesn't seem affect my memory. Somehow there's still a small glimmer of hope that things will be the way they once were.

I know it sounds crazy. And I feel crazy when I happen to have one of these breakdowns around someone who didn't live down there. It's so hard to explain it to someone who doesn't know. It the hardest feeling in the world to describe. Yes, they are only things, but these little things made up our lives. That was my first house on my own. Everything there had a story, from my couch (which I drove to Clear Lake and met a friend from San Antonio to pick up and then hated for the first week and a half, but grew to LOOOOOOVE it) to the plant behind my couch (which came from my Uncle Bill's funeral) to my stupid mini blinds (which both my mother and my aunt helped me install) and I could go on and on. Don't get me wrong, YES, I am thankful that me and my family got out because we know SO many people who didn't. It still doesn't make the pain go away. Here I am, three and a half months later, still realizing things I am missing for the first time. I don't think it'll ever end. I should have known this was coming when I was in Target earlier this week teary-eyed because I saw bathroom accessories that WOULD HAVE gone perfectly with my bathroom. I don't know what it is that triggers it, but I just wish I could back to the place in my memories. I'd give anything to have my house back. I just don't feel like I belong anywhere else right now.

In case anyone reads this, thanks for sticking with me and not thinking I'm totally crazy...I love you all.

These are my steps that I plan to retrieve on Monday...



(Just so you know I'm not the only one who is crazy, Melissa Bech has a blog on the Houston Chronicle and shares some of the same feelings. Here are two of her stories that could have very well been written by me.)
The "I Left it at the Beach" Game
I Visit My House at Night