i used to be able to think for myself and not have to call people and ask what they think i should do...what happened?
i'm so afraid now, maybe it's because i'm married and no my whims don't just effect/affect my they are a part of his life too. i don't know if i've ever known what i want to do. i wanted to be a writer, but i never write.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
something i wrote about hurricane katrina on the anniversary
Call me a masochist, but I could not stop watching the Hurricane Katrina coverage. I needed to know every detail. I had a haunting memory I had shared with some of my grade school friends as they prepared to evacuate - our middle school history teacher told us if a hurricane had the coordinates of 30 degrees north and 90 degrees west, New Orleans would cease to exist because it sits exactly at that point.
THE TRIP
My mom was not going to evacuate.
I kept telling her on the phone Sunday, Aug. 28, "You have to leave. Just leave. If you don't leave, I'm going to have a fit."
She finally left, but I didn't hear from her until 11 p.m. Sunday. The storm hit Monday, and I didn't leave my house because I was just glued to the television wondering where my folks were. I didn't hear from my mom again until that Wednesday, and by then I decided somehow, someway, I was going to go down there.
By this time, I had seen my house on television and knew that it wasn't looking good for the home team.
My whole point in going home was for the simple fact that my mom would not be able to see that house by herself. I saw my house on television before I left for home, and I knew if my mom saw what I saw, she was going to have a breakdown in that house.
I drove to Chicago the Thursday after the storm to meet with my uncle to go down to Liberty, Miss., where my folks were staying. Before I left, I was scrambling around the house trying to grab anything I thought my mom might need. Just simple small stuff that she wouldn't think of, but I realized she was going to need it. I had to go to my bank account to get cash because you couldn't write any checks or use any debit or credit cards down there.
I got to Chicago, and my uncle loaded up the truck with two 55-gallon drums of gasoline as well as food, water and supplies.
We looked like the 1st Infantry. All we needed was an American flag hanging out of the window and me on the roof blowing a horn.
We rolled up to Liberty, Miss., at about 4:30 a.m., and my mom didn't know I was coming, so she was looking all bewildered and confused but excited, like "I can't believe you got down here." We went straight to bed without unloading anything because my mom said we had to get up at 7 a.m. since the Federal Emergency Management Agency would be giving out water and ice. Since that part of Mississippi is so rural, we had to drive 20 miles just to get to town, and gas was scarce. We sat in line an hour for water and then another hour for gasoline.
We had to go to the dollar store, which had been just ransacked by people needing basic, simple stuff. I paid for all of our stuff because I wanted my mom to be able to keep the rest of the cash I brought when I left.
My mom and I also drove all over trying to get her high blood pressure medicine refilled, which was no easy task. She only had three pills left, and if you didn't have the correct paperwork, you couldn't just go home and get it.
My mom then drove me down to see my dad. When we got there, my dad was actually sitting in a lawn chair with his hat on, chewing a cigar like he was on vacation, and there was not a care in the world - like a hurricane didn't just blow through New Orleans.
He's the kind of man where if the world comes to an end, he'll be trying to make a sandwich.
My dad said he was going to Kenner, La. [my hometown, located 13 miles west of New Orleans], and I wanted to go. But I got vetoed by my uncle, who said it was not safe, and we would not be allowed in. Well, my dad showed up later and said they actually went to Kenner, La.
I asked how they got in, and he said they took back streets and dodged roadblocks. They went everywhere, took alleys, but they made it. He said the house didn't look too bad, but he could only see the outside of it, not the inside.
Over the next few days, we were listening to the news using the generator. Mind you, this is when you had to decide when you wanted to take a shower because you had to have a generator that would pump the water. You had to pick: It was the refrigerator or the air conditioner or the fan or the water. You couldn't do all of them at the same time; you had to pick one.
Then we heard on the news that residents of Kenner, La., could come back on Monday at 6 a.m. with an I.D. We realized, however, that a couple thousand people live in Jefferson Parish [a parish is similar to a county], where I live, and there was no way all those people would be able to get in at 6 a.m.. So we decided to leave that day.
GOING HOME
Gasoline was like liquid gold. I wouldn't let our gas tank get to three-fourths of a tank before finding another gas station because for every 20 gas stations, maybe one was open or had gas. Everywhere you went there was a limit, and there was a line. And you were going to wait in line if you wanted gas.
The radio said, "When you come to the city, bring something to tie over your face because you can smell the city for miles before you get there." You could smell the rotting food, the water, the fecal matter, the sewage and probably dead bodies. Then you take all that and bake it in the New Orleans heat for a week - that was the smell of New Orleans.
One of my cousins in Kenner, La., miraculously had power, so our game plan was to break up and go to our separate houses and then meet back up there.
As we were driving, I was looking at all the downed power lines and the trees, and I was watching people wandering and looking lost. We passed the airport on the way, and basically, it looked like World War III had just landed in Kenner, La. - helicopters, military planes, military personnel.
We turned down the street, and we pulled up to the house. On the outside, everything looked like it could be okay, even though the shingles were in the front yard.
'THIS IS MY HOME'
Low and behold, we try to open the door, and it sticks for a moment, but we finally push the door open, and that is when we are just stunned. The first thing we see is the hole in our ceiling and pieces of the ceiling in the middle of the floor.
So the hole in the ceiling is the first site we see, and then the smell hits us. Oh my gosh, it is burned into my nostrils. I will never forget that smell; I still gag when I think about it. Scent is the strongest sense connected to memory.
I am trying to be positive and tell her it is going to be okay, and the simple fact that we can stand here in our house and have this conversation is more than half the people in the city can do. She is not hearing it, though. My uncle says to leave her alone because she is just grieving differently.
The way I grieve: I get some gloves and start to clean.
So I go to clean out the fridge and just throw everything out. I don't even care if it is a possibility that it can be okay; I don't want anything in there near me. When you go through this stuff, you don't think about very small, simple things. So I'm throwing this food away in the garbage, not thinking, "when is the garbage man going to come?" So now, I've taken all this rotting food, and I'm putting it outside where it can bake and rot in the sun.
I haven't cried yet, but I'm cleaning out the freezer, and this is the time when I'm like, "This is going to be it for me." When you buy a whole chicken at a grocery store, it comes in a bag; this chicken is there, and the bag is just swollen, and all I hear is a "hissssss" sound coming out of it. I'm sitting there, wearing these yellow rubber gloves, with pajama pants tied around me, and I'm stepping on funky, soaked carpet, and I'm looking at the chicken, and I'm like, "God, I've been through a lot. There's a lot going on. I haven't broken down, but God, if this chicken blows up in my face, I'm going to have a breakdown."
And then I laugh at myself because that's my breaking point - exploding chickens. So I go outside, and I throw it in the trash can, and I'm taking cover like a grenade is going to go off, but it doesn't blow up.
Then the task of the carpet - it's wet, soaked with sewage, baking in the heat for a week. My mom's still not processing all of this and is off doing her own thing. My uncle and I just start cutting and ripping carpet. It's nasty. It's wet. It's splashing us in our faces. We're just cutting and ripping and dragging it out - just mounds and mounds of carpet.
My hands - no matter how much water I pour on them, no matter how much I rub them - they are just dirty. The smell will not come out. I'm starving, but I don't want to eat because I don't want anything to come in contact with my mouth that has touched my hands.
Basically, my family is trying to figure out where we are going to sleep, and my mom, my uncle and I go to sleep in the truck in a Holiday Inn parking lot. There are no lights. It is pitch black. If you close your eyes and then put your hands over your eyes and then walk around, that is what it is like.
Later, we go back to LaPlace, La. [about 30 miles northwest of New Orleans], and my aunt has running water, so she offers to let us take baths. I go into the bathroom, turn the water on, and I literally stand there with my hands cupped, letting the water run through my hands in utter amazement.
On our way back up through Mississippi, we stop to see my dad, and true to form, my dad asks me if I need any money. And I say, "What? The question is do you need any money?" We have to drive to town to get food, and he's trying to buy food for everyone, and I keep having to tell him, "No, you can't."
I don't cry until I get on the road. I feel bad about leaving my mom and my grandmother down there, and I don't want my mom to see me cry because I know she will start crying about me. I wait until we are in the car and far enough away, and then I just completely break down.
COMING BACK
When I first came back, I couldn't leave my house for two days. I felt like I was in a decompression chamber. My mom needed me to help her contact the outside world to register for FEMA and homeowners insurance, seeing as though we didn't have flood insurance. It was like I knew more than she did because she didn't have access to the Internet to get phone numbers.
It's amazing how someone can take care of you your entire life, and then you end up having to take care of them.
I wanted to quit school and go back, and my mom was like, "Uh - no." She said I had put too much time and effort into my master's degree. "What good is it going to do if you are down here and neither one of us has a job?" she said.
I was thinking that if all else fails, she could come back to Indiana and live with me.
At that point, I decided, "You are not going to be more than 10 feet away from me at all times because I don't ever want to have to go through this again."
My phrase for the whole time we were down there was "Bless the Lord." Every time something happened that was positive, I was like, " Bless the Lord." Even when stuff was bad, I said, "Bless the Lord."
FAMILY AND FRIENDS
My grandma is 90 years old, and she was telling me she was going to take care of my mom, and I was thinking, "Who's going to take care of you?"
My grandma's house was the only house that didn't get messed up. Why? Because she's Jesus' sidekick, and she's the holiest person I've ever met in my entire life. Even if her house had been flooded, she wouldn't have been upset anyway because she's at peace with God.
All of my friends and family are from New Orleans or Mississippi - everyone. It also hurts that there is not much media coverage of Mississippi or Alabama. I have strong ties to Mississippi. I went to undergrad at the University of Southern Mississippi. By the way, the eye of the hurricane passed right through Hattiesburg, where the school is located.
In undergrad, we would drive to "the coast" in the middle of the night or to New Orleans just to hang out and drive right back. I called one my friends from undergrad, whom I had last seen at Christmas when we went to a wedding on the coast, and we talked about how we had the windows down and cruised along Highway 90 - which is no longer there - and how simple it was.
I mourn for the city now. I finally got to talk to some of my other friends who I hadn't talked to since the storm hit. Some of them evacuated to Texas, and I was scared they were living in a shelter, but they weren't. They were staying with family in hotels. We just sat on the phone crying together.
What about the little places we used to go that no one knows about that we don't have anymore? If you tell somebody at Mardi Gras, "I'm going under the bridge," people know what you are talking about. They know you are going to be at the corner of St. Ann's Street and Claiborne Avenue underneath the bridge, sitting on the stoop. Yeah, you are right across the street from the projects, but you're not afraid. You are just sitting there hanging out with everybody else because you don't do the tourist thing. All the tourists know about New Orleans is Bourbon Street and the French Quarter - we never got into that. We were just going to hang out with the local people.
They might have to bulldoze my school, and my school is hundreds of years old. I found pictures of my high school, Mount Carmel Academy, on the Internet. That's when I got sad.
The media were profiling a girl who was supposed to be starting her senior year at my old high school. I just started bawling and crying. There is a Virgin Mary statue at the front of the building, and they just showed it all covered in mud.
I guess that's why I was obsessed with saving my yearbooks. When I got to the house, they were in this chest, and they were all soaked, but I would not throw them away. I have every yearbook from pre kindergarten to when I graduated undergraduate school.
One of my friends from high school, her mom and dad lost everything. Her grandmother lost everything. Her sister lost everything, and the roof fell in on the third story of her apartment. Her sister just up and moved to Atlanta because she was just so devastated by all of this. She just left. She said she wasn't coming back. My great-aunt lived in the Ninth Ward [east New Orleans], and this is the second time she has lost everything.
I missed my high school reunion this summer, and I really hate that I did that now.
People that I'm friends with - even if I don't talk to them on a regular basis - I'm still worried about them, and I have no idea where they are. I'm scared people are going to move away, and I'm not going to know where they went. Who knows where these people are going to end up now?
NO COMPARISON
People like to compare this to Sept. 11, but Sept. 11 and this are two totally different things to me. People went to sleep Monday night on Sept. 10, woke up Tuesday morning and for anyone in America, the world was basically about to come to an end. That, to me, is totally different because we saw the hurricane coming, but we just didn't know it was going to be like this. Granted, Sept. 11 was shocking, and people felt violated and unsafe. The sheer shock value made it resonate with so many people.
Both events are tragedies and unnecessary losses of life, and each will have its place in history, but the difference is this isn't a few buildings in New Orleans. This isn't a street. This isn't a block. This is an entire city. Imagine Sept. 11 if they just took away the entire island of Manhattan. New York couldn't be New York without Manhattan, so what is Louisiana without New Orleans?
I mourn for my city. I mourn for the culture. Yeah, New Orleans was really violent, really crazy and corrupt. - I'll give you that, but it was still my city. It's an entire culture, and you can't bring that back. No amount of renovation is going to get that back.
Television is fake. Television is not real.
Because when you stand there in the muck and the grime, you think, "Are you serious? This is not where I have spent the last 20 years of my life."
I don't think people really grasp how some peoples' lives are ruined. Everything I've known in my entire life is gone.
No one understands. They don't. They can't. It's mind-boggling. It's like the city of Atlantis that just disappeared, and you can't get it back.
STATE OF MIND
My whole state of mind has changed. I never want to complain. I never want to open my mouth about anything that's negative. I just want to be thankful that I have all 10 toes and all 10 fingers. I'm just glad to be here, glad to be alive.
If you don't turn to God after this, there is no hope for you.
This is a life-altering experience. I do wonder if I'd be saying that if my house was destroyed and if someone was dead. I don't know. But I do feel like even if you have lost everything, it would be in your best interest to pray. I know God and I are closer.
THE FUTURE
From what I've seen, they are just going to have to get bulldozers and just drive until they run out of land. People keep telling me they will rebuild, and it's going to be the same, but it's not going to be the same.
I don't care what they told you on the news. I've lived there my entire life, and it's not going to be the same.
I graduate in May. I had everything planned - with every intent to move to Washington, D.C., and get a job working for a nonprofit or newspaper and try to save the world. Now, I'll probably move back home. I feel like my mom can't do this by herself - emotionally, physically or financially.
Seeing as though Katrina and I are already on a first-name basis, I won't even acknowledge Rita. Friends ask me if my parents are going to evacuate for Hurricane Rita. I know they aren't. They won't even talk about Rita, like it's not even there. I don't even ask if they are going to evacuate because I know they are not.
I'm wondering if natural disasters are just going to chase New Orleans natives all over the country until they end up in Canada.
A WORLD AWAY
It's very hard to be normal now that I'm back because I feel so guilty being here.
My house was stability - even though I didn't get to see it often since I moved. Muncie is temporary, but home was home. My dad always used to say, "When you can't go anywhere else, you can go home." Well, not really.
THE TRIP
My mom was not going to evacuate.
I kept telling her on the phone Sunday, Aug. 28, "You have to leave. Just leave. If you don't leave, I'm going to have a fit."
She finally left, but I didn't hear from her until 11 p.m. Sunday. The storm hit Monday, and I didn't leave my house because I was just glued to the television wondering where my folks were. I didn't hear from my mom again until that Wednesday, and by then I decided somehow, someway, I was going to go down there.
By this time, I had seen my house on television and knew that it wasn't looking good for the home team.
My whole point in going home was for the simple fact that my mom would not be able to see that house by herself. I saw my house on television before I left for home, and I knew if my mom saw what I saw, she was going to have a breakdown in that house.
I drove to Chicago the Thursday after the storm to meet with my uncle to go down to Liberty, Miss., where my folks were staying. Before I left, I was scrambling around the house trying to grab anything I thought my mom might need. Just simple small stuff that she wouldn't think of, but I realized she was going to need it. I had to go to my bank account to get cash because you couldn't write any checks or use any debit or credit cards down there.
I got to Chicago, and my uncle loaded up the truck with two 55-gallon drums of gasoline as well as food, water and supplies.
We looked like the 1st Infantry. All we needed was an American flag hanging out of the window and me on the roof blowing a horn.
We rolled up to Liberty, Miss., at about 4:30 a.m., and my mom didn't know I was coming, so she was looking all bewildered and confused but excited, like "I can't believe you got down here." We went straight to bed without unloading anything because my mom said we had to get up at 7 a.m. since the Federal Emergency Management Agency would be giving out water and ice. Since that part of Mississippi is so rural, we had to drive 20 miles just to get to town, and gas was scarce. We sat in line an hour for water and then another hour for gasoline.
We had to go to the dollar store, which had been just ransacked by people needing basic, simple stuff. I paid for all of our stuff because I wanted my mom to be able to keep the rest of the cash I brought when I left.
My mom and I also drove all over trying to get her high blood pressure medicine refilled, which was no easy task. She only had three pills left, and if you didn't have the correct paperwork, you couldn't just go home and get it.
My mom then drove me down to see my dad. When we got there, my dad was actually sitting in a lawn chair with his hat on, chewing a cigar like he was on vacation, and there was not a care in the world - like a hurricane didn't just blow through New Orleans.
He's the kind of man where if the world comes to an end, he'll be trying to make a sandwich.
My dad said he was going to Kenner, La. [my hometown, located 13 miles west of New Orleans], and I wanted to go. But I got vetoed by my uncle, who said it was not safe, and we would not be allowed in. Well, my dad showed up later and said they actually went to Kenner, La.
I asked how they got in, and he said they took back streets and dodged roadblocks. They went everywhere, took alleys, but they made it. He said the house didn't look too bad, but he could only see the outside of it, not the inside.
Over the next few days, we were listening to the news using the generator. Mind you, this is when you had to decide when you wanted to take a shower because you had to have a generator that would pump the water. You had to pick: It was the refrigerator or the air conditioner or the fan or the water. You couldn't do all of them at the same time; you had to pick one.
Then we heard on the news that residents of Kenner, La., could come back on Monday at 6 a.m. with an I.D. We realized, however, that a couple thousand people live in Jefferson Parish [a parish is similar to a county], where I live, and there was no way all those people would be able to get in at 6 a.m.. So we decided to leave that day.
GOING HOME
Gasoline was like liquid gold. I wouldn't let our gas tank get to three-fourths of a tank before finding another gas station because for every 20 gas stations, maybe one was open or had gas. Everywhere you went there was a limit, and there was a line. And you were going to wait in line if you wanted gas.
The radio said, "When you come to the city, bring something to tie over your face because you can smell the city for miles before you get there." You could smell the rotting food, the water, the fecal matter, the sewage and probably dead bodies. Then you take all that and bake it in the New Orleans heat for a week - that was the smell of New Orleans.
One of my cousins in Kenner, La., miraculously had power, so our game plan was to break up and go to our separate houses and then meet back up there.
As we were driving, I was looking at all the downed power lines and the trees, and I was watching people wandering and looking lost. We passed the airport on the way, and basically, it looked like World War III had just landed in Kenner, La. - helicopters, military planes, military personnel.
We turned down the street, and we pulled up to the house. On the outside, everything looked like it could be okay, even though the shingles were in the front yard.
'THIS IS MY HOME'
Low and behold, we try to open the door, and it sticks for a moment, but we finally push the door open, and that is when we are just stunned. The first thing we see is the hole in our ceiling and pieces of the ceiling in the middle of the floor.
So the hole in the ceiling is the first site we see, and then the smell hits us. Oh my gosh, it is burned into my nostrils. I will never forget that smell; I still gag when I think about it. Scent is the strongest sense connected to memory.
I am trying to be positive and tell her it is going to be okay, and the simple fact that we can stand here in our house and have this conversation is more than half the people in the city can do. She is not hearing it, though. My uncle says to leave her alone because she is just grieving differently.
The way I grieve: I get some gloves and start to clean.
So I go to clean out the fridge and just throw everything out. I don't even care if it is a possibility that it can be okay; I don't want anything in there near me. When you go through this stuff, you don't think about very small, simple things. So I'm throwing this food away in the garbage, not thinking, "when is the garbage man going to come?" So now, I've taken all this rotting food, and I'm putting it outside where it can bake and rot in the sun.
I haven't cried yet, but I'm cleaning out the freezer, and this is the time when I'm like, "This is going to be it for me." When you buy a whole chicken at a grocery store, it comes in a bag; this chicken is there, and the bag is just swollen, and all I hear is a "hissssss" sound coming out of it. I'm sitting there, wearing these yellow rubber gloves, with pajama pants tied around me, and I'm stepping on funky, soaked carpet, and I'm looking at the chicken, and I'm like, "God, I've been through a lot. There's a lot going on. I haven't broken down, but God, if this chicken blows up in my face, I'm going to have a breakdown."
And then I laugh at myself because that's my breaking point - exploding chickens. So I go outside, and I throw it in the trash can, and I'm taking cover like a grenade is going to go off, but it doesn't blow up.
Then the task of the carpet - it's wet, soaked with sewage, baking in the heat for a week. My mom's still not processing all of this and is off doing her own thing. My uncle and I just start cutting and ripping carpet. It's nasty. It's wet. It's splashing us in our faces. We're just cutting and ripping and dragging it out - just mounds and mounds of carpet.
My hands - no matter how much water I pour on them, no matter how much I rub them - they are just dirty. The smell will not come out. I'm starving, but I don't want to eat because I don't want anything to come in contact with my mouth that has touched my hands.
Basically, my family is trying to figure out where we are going to sleep, and my mom, my uncle and I go to sleep in the truck in a Holiday Inn parking lot. There are no lights. It is pitch black. If you close your eyes and then put your hands over your eyes and then walk around, that is what it is like.
Later, we go back to LaPlace, La. [about 30 miles northwest of New Orleans], and my aunt has running water, so she offers to let us take baths. I go into the bathroom, turn the water on, and I literally stand there with my hands cupped, letting the water run through my hands in utter amazement.
On our way back up through Mississippi, we stop to see my dad, and true to form, my dad asks me if I need any money. And I say, "What? The question is do you need any money?" We have to drive to town to get food, and he's trying to buy food for everyone, and I keep having to tell him, "No, you can't."
I don't cry until I get on the road. I feel bad about leaving my mom and my grandmother down there, and I don't want my mom to see me cry because I know she will start crying about me. I wait until we are in the car and far enough away, and then I just completely break down.
COMING BACK
When I first came back, I couldn't leave my house for two days. I felt like I was in a decompression chamber. My mom needed me to help her contact the outside world to register for FEMA and homeowners insurance, seeing as though we didn't have flood insurance. It was like I knew more than she did because she didn't have access to the Internet to get phone numbers.
It's amazing how someone can take care of you your entire life, and then you end up having to take care of them.
I wanted to quit school and go back, and my mom was like, "Uh - no." She said I had put too much time and effort into my master's degree. "What good is it going to do if you are down here and neither one of us has a job?" she said.
I was thinking that if all else fails, she could come back to Indiana and live with me.
At that point, I decided, "You are not going to be more than 10 feet away from me at all times because I don't ever want to have to go through this again."
My phrase for the whole time we were down there was "Bless the Lord." Every time something happened that was positive, I was like, " Bless the Lord." Even when stuff was bad, I said, "Bless the Lord."
FAMILY AND FRIENDS
My grandma is 90 years old, and she was telling me she was going to take care of my mom, and I was thinking, "Who's going to take care of you?"
My grandma's house was the only house that didn't get messed up. Why? Because she's Jesus' sidekick, and she's the holiest person I've ever met in my entire life. Even if her house had been flooded, she wouldn't have been upset anyway because she's at peace with God.
All of my friends and family are from New Orleans or Mississippi - everyone. It also hurts that there is not much media coverage of Mississippi or Alabama. I have strong ties to Mississippi. I went to undergrad at the University of Southern Mississippi. By the way, the eye of the hurricane passed right through Hattiesburg, where the school is located.
In undergrad, we would drive to "the coast" in the middle of the night or to New Orleans just to hang out and drive right back. I called one my friends from undergrad, whom I had last seen at Christmas when we went to a wedding on the coast, and we talked about how we had the windows down and cruised along Highway 90 - which is no longer there - and how simple it was.
I mourn for the city now. I finally got to talk to some of my other friends who I hadn't talked to since the storm hit. Some of them evacuated to Texas, and I was scared they were living in a shelter, but they weren't. They were staying with family in hotels. We just sat on the phone crying together.
What about the little places we used to go that no one knows about that we don't have anymore? If you tell somebody at Mardi Gras, "I'm going under the bridge," people know what you are talking about. They know you are going to be at the corner of St. Ann's Street and Claiborne Avenue underneath the bridge, sitting on the stoop. Yeah, you are right across the street from the projects, but you're not afraid. You are just sitting there hanging out with everybody else because you don't do the tourist thing. All the tourists know about New Orleans is Bourbon Street and the French Quarter - we never got into that. We were just going to hang out with the local people.
They might have to bulldoze my school, and my school is hundreds of years old. I found pictures of my high school, Mount Carmel Academy, on the Internet. That's when I got sad.
The media were profiling a girl who was supposed to be starting her senior year at my old high school. I just started bawling and crying. There is a Virgin Mary statue at the front of the building, and they just showed it all covered in mud.
I guess that's why I was obsessed with saving my yearbooks. When I got to the house, they were in this chest, and they were all soaked, but I would not throw them away. I have every yearbook from pre kindergarten to when I graduated undergraduate school.
One of my friends from high school, her mom and dad lost everything. Her grandmother lost everything. Her sister lost everything, and the roof fell in on the third story of her apartment. Her sister just up and moved to Atlanta because she was just so devastated by all of this. She just left. She said she wasn't coming back. My great-aunt lived in the Ninth Ward [east New Orleans], and this is the second time she has lost everything.
I missed my high school reunion this summer, and I really hate that I did that now.
People that I'm friends with - even if I don't talk to them on a regular basis - I'm still worried about them, and I have no idea where they are. I'm scared people are going to move away, and I'm not going to know where they went. Who knows where these people are going to end up now?
NO COMPARISON
People like to compare this to Sept. 11, but Sept. 11 and this are two totally different things to me. People went to sleep Monday night on Sept. 10, woke up Tuesday morning and for anyone in America, the world was basically about to come to an end. That, to me, is totally different because we saw the hurricane coming, but we just didn't know it was going to be like this. Granted, Sept. 11 was shocking, and people felt violated and unsafe. The sheer shock value made it resonate with so many people.
Both events are tragedies and unnecessary losses of life, and each will have its place in history, but the difference is this isn't a few buildings in New Orleans. This isn't a street. This isn't a block. This is an entire city. Imagine Sept. 11 if they just took away the entire island of Manhattan. New York couldn't be New York without Manhattan, so what is Louisiana without New Orleans?
I mourn for my city. I mourn for the culture. Yeah, New Orleans was really violent, really crazy and corrupt. - I'll give you that, but it was still my city. It's an entire culture, and you can't bring that back. No amount of renovation is going to get that back.
Television is fake. Television is not real.
Because when you stand there in the muck and the grime, you think, "Are you serious? This is not where I have spent the last 20 years of my life."
I don't think people really grasp how some peoples' lives are ruined. Everything I've known in my entire life is gone.
No one understands. They don't. They can't. It's mind-boggling. It's like the city of Atlantis that just disappeared, and you can't get it back.
STATE OF MIND
My whole state of mind has changed. I never want to complain. I never want to open my mouth about anything that's negative. I just want to be thankful that I have all 10 toes and all 10 fingers. I'm just glad to be here, glad to be alive.
If you don't turn to God after this, there is no hope for you.
This is a life-altering experience. I do wonder if I'd be saying that if my house was destroyed and if someone was dead. I don't know. But I do feel like even if you have lost everything, it would be in your best interest to pray. I know God and I are closer.
THE FUTURE
From what I've seen, they are just going to have to get bulldozers and just drive until they run out of land. People keep telling me they will rebuild, and it's going to be the same, but it's not going to be the same.
I don't care what they told you on the news. I've lived there my entire life, and it's not going to be the same.
I graduate in May. I had everything planned - with every intent to move to Washington, D.C., and get a job working for a nonprofit or newspaper and try to save the world. Now, I'll probably move back home. I feel like my mom can't do this by herself - emotionally, physically or financially.
Seeing as though Katrina and I are already on a first-name basis, I won't even acknowledge Rita. Friends ask me if my parents are going to evacuate for Hurricane Rita. I know they aren't. They won't even talk about Rita, like it's not even there. I don't even ask if they are going to evacuate because I know they are not.
I'm wondering if natural disasters are just going to chase New Orleans natives all over the country until they end up in Canada.
A WORLD AWAY
It's very hard to be normal now that I'm back because I feel so guilty being here.
My house was stability - even though I didn't get to see it often since I moved. Muncie is temporary, but home was home. My dad always used to say, "When you can't go anywhere else, you can go home." Well, not really.
stupid depression and anxiety
if it had less would i be happier?
my car had to go to the shop today so i had a rush of feelings,
paying my credit card bills, which it seems will never go away
buying a new car, i haven't paid a car note and i don't want one
getting a house, it seems like it's farther away everyday
having kids, stopped taking bcp's to keep my body in check, still don't need to get pregnant now
having health insurance, if something were to happen to me like an illness, that would be it
am i ungrateful, do i lack faith?
what the hell happened to the middle class?
things i'm blessed to have and thankful for: IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER
health (more physical than mental at this time)
a place to live
my mom and dad are alive and for the most pat well
my enormously funny husband
a job (that unfornately doesn't fulfill me, but it pays the bills, i want more than that though)
a car (that works for 95% of the time)
groceries (healthy food at that)
a church we belong to
Jesus/God (if He's this far down on the list what does that mean?!?) i guess ifeel like if i truly had Him, i wouldn't feel this way
my grandmother and family in general
I NEED A MENTAL HEALTH DAY AT HOME, OF ALL THE THINGS MY MOTHER COULD GIVE ME, SHE GAVE ME HER CRAZY EMOTIONAL STATE
is it bad that i can't think of anything else...
clothes to wear
I MEAN IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH ME?!?
can i just be happy with what i have and not want more
Philippians 4:6-7, 11-13
6Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
11I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
my car had to go to the shop today so i had a rush of feelings,
paying my credit card bills, which it seems will never go away
buying a new car, i haven't paid a car note and i don't want one
getting a house, it seems like it's farther away everyday
having kids, stopped taking bcp's to keep my body in check, still don't need to get pregnant now
having health insurance, if something were to happen to me like an illness, that would be it
am i ungrateful, do i lack faith?
what the hell happened to the middle class?
things i'm blessed to have and thankful for: IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER
health (more physical than mental at this time)
a place to live
my mom and dad are alive and for the most pat well
my enormously funny husband
a job (that unfornately doesn't fulfill me, but it pays the bills, i want more than that though)
a car (that works for 95% of the time)
groceries (healthy food at that)
a church we belong to
Jesus/God (if He's this far down on the list what does that mean?!?) i guess ifeel like if i truly had Him, i wouldn't feel this way
my grandmother and family in general
I NEED A MENTAL HEALTH DAY AT HOME, OF ALL THE THINGS MY MOTHER COULD GIVE ME, SHE GAVE ME HER CRAZY EMOTIONAL STATE
is it bad that i can't think of anything else...
clothes to wear
I MEAN IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH ME?!?
can i just be happy with what i have and not want more
Philippians 4:6-7, 11-13
6Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
11I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Thursday, October 11, 2007
here and now
okay so the counselor lady helped but then she sucked cause she didn't find me a place i can go to for long term counseling...
my mantra is 'when i decided to channel the power within me, everything will be okay"
that has made a world of a difference in my attitude and it has saved me from antagonizing my husband so much
now on to this job search foolishness....why didn't they just hand me a manual at the end of high school or college that had all my life things figured out...i can't believe i have 2 degrees and no idea waht i want to do...actually i nkow what i want to do i want to write and i just have to find out how to do that....it would all seem so simple,
but maybe i'm making it harder tahn it ahs to be, maybe i should have taken taht clerk reporter job in fort mill or rock hill....but that wasn't it either...
i have topromise myself taht i'm not goin to let it get me down...i need to learn spansih as well...
i need to go ba`k to the gym regularly
everythin gmakes me tiredd
i can't fall into the sad depressing state i was in beofre...readin some scriptures got me out of that one thank God for thatat...i june need to not let this get me down i think bloggin gabout it is makin git worse...so i'll stop
my mantra is 'when i decided to channel the power within me, everything will be okay"
that has made a world of a difference in my attitude and it has saved me from antagonizing my husband so much
now on to this job search foolishness....why didn't they just hand me a manual at the end of high school or college that had all my life things figured out...i can't believe i have 2 degrees and no idea waht i want to do...actually i nkow what i want to do i want to write and i just have to find out how to do that....it would all seem so simple,
but maybe i'm making it harder tahn it ahs to be, maybe i should have taken taht clerk reporter job in fort mill or rock hill....but that wasn't it either...
i have topromise myself taht i'm not goin to let it get me down...i need to learn spansih as well...
i need to go ba`k to the gym regularly
everythin gmakes me tiredd
i can't fall into the sad depressing state i was in beofre...readin some scriptures got me out of that one thank God for thatat...i june need to not let this get me down i think bloggin gabout it is makin git worse...so i'll stop
Friday, July 13, 2007
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