Holidays in Harvey Town

In Search of Lost Time

There’s nothing that punctuates the passage of time quite like birthdays (my 32nd passed on August 29th, and four months ago already) natural disasters (thanks, Harvey, also four months ago), and holidays (I’m looking at you, New Year’s Day… a.k.a January 1… a.k.a. the first day of the rest of your life.) These events serve to remind you of all the decisions you’ve made and continue to make, and whether or not it’s time to re-evaluate your life choices. For instance, I originally wrote this post on August 31st, and I kept telling myself I would post it, but then life happens, and I drift in and out of chasing a dream, and sadly just let other things get in the way.

What have I been doing in between all these hurricanes? At this point I’m just stacking hurricane anniversaries on my birthday. I was born during Hurricane Elena. The family lore is actually that I was born during Hurricane Juan in 1985, and my name was almost Juanita, but that’s not correct, I did some Google research and a Tropical Storm Elena strengthened into a Hurricane on August 29th. Granted it wasn’t that close to us when it made landfall in Cuba, but it was something people were probably paying attention to. Something that was on the news in Louisiana. Background noise to be sure that my future story would start that I was born in a hurricane, or to quote one of my favorite Florence and the Machine songs, “I was born in a big gray cloud, screaming out a love song. All the broken chords and unnamed cries. What a place to come from…”

Fast forward to 2005⎯ Hurricane Katrina⎯ and that’s more of a memory that sticks with me, and reminds me of what just happened with Harvey. I had actually been visiting my sister in Houston long before I lived here to celebrate my birthday. We were drinking margaritas by the pool, when my mom called and told me not to come home to Lafayette because the storm was too big. Ok, fine, mom, I’ll keep partying. While Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama were hammered by Katrina, I was enjoying a few extra pool days.

The weekend of Harvey was quite the weekend of H’s. Hurricane Harvey hammering Houston, and then I go celebrate my birthday at Hugo’s and then the next day brunch at Harold’s… you don’t usually see that many H names gathered in one place.

Hearkening Back to that Fateful Day

I didn’t want to be alone. I somehow convinced my new romantic interest to weather the storm with me. The first evening was a battle as I started to have a minor freak out and began wondering if we should evacuate to Dallas along with other family members. Started calling and texting people and ultimately decided to stay, even though I knew that if/once the flooding started, we’d be trapped and that would be the end game. My biggest concern was that I might lose power and then we’d be stuck together… Two people who hadn’t know each other very long, in somewhat close quarters with no power. The prospect of that scenario was panic-inducing, but we decided that staying made the most sense.

My family members evacuated to Dallas, I opted to stay, knowing that most of the people that I knew in town were staying as well, even though I’d heard reports about how bad the water was going to be, but how bad would it really be? We’ve been getting horrible flooding for three years now. Memorial Day 2015, Tax Day 2016, and now Harvey. Surely it wouldn’t be worse than the past two… Wrong.

I kept power and Internet the entire time during the storm. Kept filling and refilling the bathtub, wondering if there was going to be a warning that the water was being turned off or a pipe had burst, and we’d have to use bathtub water to boil to stay alive. Kept anxiously listening to the rain and checking out the blinds to make sure that the water wasn’t rising onto my porch or into the parking garage. It never did. I turned on the news to see stories about people getting rescued from roofs on boats, and could hear rescue choppers flying overhead many times, wondering where they were airlifting people to and from. It was nerve racking and exhausting, but the disaster didn’t come for me.

The worst that happened was that parts of a tree came down into the street on Friday night. By Saturday it had already been cleared and moved to the side of the street. Then on Saturday night when the flooding really started, the highest that it got was as high as the curb. The street looked like a swift moving river, and there were a few cars that tried to brave the waters, failed, and had to be abandoned. The water had completely receded by the next morning, and it never got that high again the rest of the time of the rains. Then you turn on the news and the experience couldn’t have been more different. Living in my alternate reality, wondering where all this damage was happening, but it was literally happening all around us. The natural disasters keep coming, and I have survivor’s guilt.

What Does it All Mean?! Holidays in Harvey-Town

Here we are at the end of the year. We’ve been back in the grind, experienced the holidays, and we’re out on the other side. Many are still dealing with the watery nightmare, and here I am in an alternate universe where I was left unscathed. Time feels distorted, and I still feel somewhat disconnected from reality. I’ve done my volunteering, and I’ve made my donations. I’m always happy to help more, but again here I am competing for time and resources with myself.

But going back to my original point about the punctuation of time, I keep having these existential breakdowns. Who do I want to be? Why do I want to be something other than what I am? And if that’s who I really want to be, then why am I not doing everything I can to become that person? Making conscious decisions to get on the right path to my best, ideal self.

I've been here before... At the beginning of 2016 actually, and it feels like really bad deja vu. I’m realizing how much I procrastinate. I’m realizing how much I prioritize the wrong things, or the right things at the wrong times… How I keep waiting for something that isn’t going to come find me, I have to go find it. Every time I get to this point I’m reminded of how much I keep putting my goals off and I don’t want to anymore. I don’t know if it’s fear of failure or fear of success at this point, or what’s even holding me back, but these two things make it super apparent that time is passing, and I’m not getting closer and I’m taking it for granted. Time is your most precious commodity, so it’s important to spend it wisely, doing the things that make you happy and with the people that make you happy. I think part of my problem is that I get so much joy out of so many things, and I just need to decide what and who is the most important.

So here I am again. Making New Year’s Resolutions that I hope I can keep. Now I just want to tell the story and close the first book so that I can move on to the sequel, and start working on the final act because at 32, quickly approaching 33, you know this is going to be a trilogy.