It Continues

I feel sick today. UTMB is doing 2,000 of the expected 3,800 layoffs today. My face gets hot, my hands get numb and my vision gets blurry. I have a hard time making sense of my surroundings. And I'm one of the lucky ones that doesn't even live there anymore.

This is from a friend's email to me:

"This is a crazy and awful time. Within the past 24 hours, I've seen a grown man wearing a UTMB electrician's uniform burst into tears in the middle of [the grocery]. I've also had the experience of typing an e-mail message to the IT department asking for help--only to pause, look up at my TV screen, and see the very person I was e-mailing telling [TV news] reporters that he had just been asked to retire early. I feel like I have stepped into some sort of waking nightmare."

Two steps forward...

So we're finally settled in a HOME. A REAL home. A place we're going to stay through the foreseeable future. The kids are in school. I'm back at work. P is signing up for college. We're doing mundane things like going grocery shopping every week and eating food that we cook at home. We're going to the park after school and visiting family on the weekends. We've been here for exactly two weeks now, and our lives look good and boring. 

Then again, there are always surprises. On the way home yesterday, our son asked if we were going home to the park house. We explained again that we don't live there anymore and that our current house is our new home. He asked why, and we explained again that there were a lot of reasons. Mommy got a new job and we wanted to live closer to his grandparents. He was quiet so we left it at that. 

Then later he told me, "Mommy there's another bad reason that we don't live at the park house."

I asked, "Why?"

He replied, "Because it was destroyed in a flood."

Home

Last week we all got into the car and told the kids we were going home. Our son asked, "which home?" We have lived in four homes in two months. Our belongings were scattered between houses and we all felt disoriented. One day I brought a couple of toys and some pajamas from our island home to the place we were staying. You would have thought Santa just presented our son with his own motorcycle for all his gleeful whoops and hollers and dancing around. After bath we brought out his Hulk pajamas.

"Are these from the park house?" 

"Yes."

"Waaahoo!!"

It was clear he missed his home.

So many things changed very quickly about our circumstances. In a span of two weeks, we moved our two carloads of belongings to a home closer to the Gulf Coast, put the kids in a second new school, returned to our jobs on the island, and packed up our old home. Meanwhile, I accepted a new job in the hill country, so we never really settled back into our old lives. We saw some old friends, which seemed to be more confusing than comforting to our son, tied up loose ends as best we could in such a hurry, and then moved again. 

A new job in a new city, another move, another daycare/preschool, another home. But finally, a HOME. What is it now... 56 days after we evacuated and we have a HOME. A place to STAY. 

On the way to school the other day, our son said he was going to a REAL school with REAL teachers. How wonderful to hear that he is settling in too. He is still confused at times but seems to understand that we are staying put. Tonight at the park he asked if our house was next to the park. Our island home was immediately across the street from a park, and I could see him trying to put all the pieces together, how our new life is situated within our old life.

The whole process hasn't upset our 1-year-old. I would have thought she would have a hard time switching from school to school, but she seems to enjoy the new kids and new toys and just rolls with all the changes. For her, I think the most difficult times are when her family is acting crazy and stressed, so as long as we're together and being nice, she's ok. 

It is difficult now to capture the agony and desperation we all felt, even just a few days ago. How quickly we become comfortable again when the dust settles. Regardless, we feel absolutely grateful to have found a place where we know the answers. The uncertainty is unbearable. Where will we live? Will we have a job? What will we do next? So many of our friends are still wondering these things with no promise of answers soon to come.