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| After 3 weeks of working like crazy, not getting enough sleep, spending every free minute together... Everything stops. Time off- incredibly relaxing. Hours and hours spent just enjoying each other's company. Don't want it to end... After wavering back and forth about whether or not to stay, finally deciding to stay. Why not? Back to Baton Rouge to get a new assignment from headquarters. Hurricane Rita on the way... things get hectic- go for lunch and come back to a deserted headquarters. Getting ready for the next phase. Spend the night in a staff shelter with who knows how many people. Great storm- never seen anything like it. The wind, the rain, the trees down-electricity goes off, the roof starts to leak. Next day. Seems like the storm has changed more than the temperature. What happened to us? Bickering almost. Crabby with each other. We have a new assignment- going to New Orleans! Except we can't leave until Nagin says we can come back in the city. Could be a few days. Kind of...bored. Used to so much excitement- so much CHAOS! So much to do. Pace of life has gone from 100 mph to what feels like less than zero in just a few days. Bored with each other? I feel myself getting testy. Tired of eating at Bennigans! Tired of driving around. Nowhere to go to get privacy. Talking and talking and talking. And talking and talking. Differences becoming more pronounced? Because it's getting old or because of the situation? Comfortable enough with each other that we can snap at each other and apologize 5 minutes after. Nice that we're so comfortable with each other? After only a month we're annoyed with each other? Extreme circumstances... Talk about what will happen "after". Try to stay together? One vote for yes and one vote for no. Make plans to see each other? ...what's the point? Lives going in opposite directions... ME: world traveler, don't know what I'm doing from one month to the next and LIKE IT that way, not ready to settle down IN THE SLIGHTEST, the thought of staying in one place for more than a few months MAKES ME QUEASY. Now is the time for adventure in my life!!! Already planning what WARM place I want to be in before the DAMN SNOW comes back to Wisconsin... HIM: good old hometown family-oriented religious loves his mom Iowa boy. Looking for steady midwest girl (possibly nurse?) to bear his children and love him forever while he is off being a firefighter. Doesn't see any reason to leave the midwest. Moving 30 miles away from family to go to college was the hardest and loneliest time for him. Wow...putting it into text makes it sound even more ridiculous. But at the same time... don't I want to settle down? Eventually I do. Don't I think I could end up in the midwest? Eventually. I really want a family. More than anything I want a family. But god, not now. Now is the time to explore. He is attracted to me for my adventurous spirit and my compassion. I'm attracted to him for his compassion and stability. Is there romantic life after Disaster Relief? The question of the day..... Sitting in headquarters waiting for the word so we can go into New Orleans. The new adventure begins. Everything else will wait. |
| Extreme situations tend to make people bond together more than they would otherwise. True? True. So what does that say for my relationships when the majority of my life in the recent past could be considered an extreme situation? Working 12-15-24 hour days at a shelter with (at on point) 7,000 evacuees- mostly from New Orleans- with some of the saddest stories I've ever heard... (Is there anything more devastating than losing everything you have to something that you have no control over???) So many people missing families....what if they didn't make it???? so many families already knowing their loved ones in fact didn't make it... Trying to find some order in the madness and chaos of so many people in the most desperate situations they've ever been in. What can I say to soothe the pain? To give hope? Absolutely nothing. Stressful times for everyone involved... including the volunteers such as myself. (More about those details in future blogs) Seems very natural in a situation such as this to want to bond with someone- to need to have regular human conversation- to have someone to relax with- someone who knows what you are going through. Despite any details of our "normal" lives- doesn't matter. Despite what we "usually" do, or who our friends are, or who we think we are outside of this experience- We are here. We are together. I've known him one month and it feels like one year. He knows more about me than some of my friends back home ever will. We've talked more seriously about life than I ever cared to, but somehow he brings it out of me. (Is it the situation, or is it him?) He compliments me. Says wonderful things about who I am, who I want to be. Obviously cares so much already... I do too. Respect him for everything that he is, for how he is with me, for how I see him with other people. Can't imagine this experience without him. Comes time to go home... don't know how to let it go. Don't want to yet. Decide to stay a few more weeks. Another hurricane on the way--- They definitely still need us. I definitely still need him. Those who wander are not always lost... |
| So. Here I am sitting at a laptop in the ARC headquarters in Baton Rouge. I've been in Louisiana for almost a month now and I still have 2 more weeks. I have wanted to write my thoughts and feelings so many times in the past few weeks but I've either been so busy or so tired or trying desperately to take my mind off of anything that I would like to be recording right now... The days before the hurricane they were saying on the news how devastating they expected it to be...in the middle of looking for some kind of B.S. job in a city that isn't really home to me anymore after only 3 weeks of being back from Africa- I kept my eye on the news and listened for the phone. Two days before the hurricane hit land they called me to see if I could come down. My heart started to race before I could even get the word YES out of my mouth. Two more days of waiting and watching the news. The hurricane struck shore Monday morning. Devastating Southeast Louisiana and nearly all of Mississippi. I started to pack. Monday afternoon the call finally came. Time to go- Tuesday morning I went to my local chapter to get briefed and ready. Got lost on the way to the office and started to freak out a little. Yelling and swearing in my car- WHAT KIND OF G.D. DIRECTIONS DID THEY GIVE ME??? HOW DO THEY EXPECT ME TO FIND ANYTHING IN THIS PODUNK TOWN???-- realizing it's the nerves getting to me. Less than 24 hours after I got the call, I'm on the plane to Houston. I come alone but meet up with a few hundred others that just arrived. The next morning we're all on our way to Baton Rouge to the headquarters for the Louisiana disaster response. Checked in at headquarters and was immediately assigned to work in a shelter in the Cajun Dome in Lafayette. |
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