Hi everyone.
Yes, I am alive. Even natural disasters hitting 10 miles from my house can't take me out. I'm indestructible? But I'm also rattled. Which is why I am writing about it, now 5 days after a magnitude 7 earthquake tore up the roads and buildings of this great state, that I am still very much in awe of.
My family is safe. My husband is fine. (Surprise, I got married!)
But my anxiety is spiked, and I'm home alone like I was when the earthquake hit, and in all honesty, I'm not doing well with it. So here I am, resorting to writing a story for you guys because it's the only way I know how to cope with fear, and helplessness, and the inevitable PTSD that we all have. Here goes nothing. I hope it helps.
Let me paint you a picture.
I jolt awake and throw the blankets off of my body. It's too hot, so I open the window. Just as am moving back to bed, my second-floor apartment starts to rock gently in soft waves. No worries. This happens all the time, it's just a little earthquake.
I sit on my bed to wait it out like the countless others we experience every year. This is not a big deal.
But no. This one is different. I can feel it in my bones.
It's a slow build. My house starts shaking harder than I've ever felt in my life. I think of those in the '64 earthquake, and the devastation that followed. I think of Jace and his workplace resting on the fault line.
I scramble around in the dark for my phone, struggling to keep myself upright. I call Jace and it rings and rings while I'm rattled around in this fresh hell. There is so much noise. Panic-induced screams from the neighbors downstairs. Shattering glass. My chest of drawers rocking back and forth, smashing against the wall while the phone rings and rings and rings, agonizingly.
I curl closer to the wall because that's what they told me to do in earthquake safety lessons in elementary school. The ground jolts, betraying me and throws me headfirst into the wall repeatedly. It's almost like one of those sloppy lover-boys in high school who doesn't notice that your head is hitting the headboard.
I brace myself for the ceiling to cave in, or the floor to give out, or my windows to shatter.
And then everything just stops.
I call Jace again. No answer.
Six minutes pass at a snail's pace while I try not to picture his headstone or see him crushed by lumber or heavy equipment at work.
Just as my phone finally buzzes with his name on the screen, the tremors start again.
"Jace?! Are you okay?" I choke, making my way to the doorway, but when I try to stand I only fall again, back onto my mattress.
"I'm fine. I'm coming home."
And that...is apparently all I've got.
