Update Wed 10/5- 3AM
We had a good friend come to be with our kids today. Our kids had a good day! Painted nails, played games, snuggled a baby (ok a toddler)..
It really does feel like a vacation when I enter my friend’s condo. We aren’t doing vacation things, but there is a similar feeling of when you come in from a full day and you just want to take a shower and sit…
If I’m honest, I’m getting nervous, I don’t know how we all will do when we wake up and go to sleep outside of our house on a regular basis. Our time at the condo is ending. The place isn’t available for us to continue staying, we knew it.. we kinda were in denial. My little guy has told me many time how much he loves it here and tonight we sat outside for a bit staring at the moon and watching the clouds before bed. He shared some scary feelings with the hurricane too.
It’s cathartic to talk about trauma with others who get you. It can be uncomfortable to the person listening, especially if they themselves haven’t talked about their own trauma over the years. People need to tell their stories. People need others who are willing to enter into the pain and mess of life and sit with them in it.
Today as I drove down the road toward our house, I sobbed. Mostly because I had not really sobbed yet, maybe because our kids weren’t with us, or just because my body needed a release at that moment. There’s a pretty steady pace of hard uncontrollable things around me.
I was going to demo the bathroom today! I left this afternoon ready. The van we had dried out and I had just driven the night before to ballet with the kids decided it was done. It flashed every light available and then shook.
I wasn’t prepared for the vehicle mess I was faced with. I spent the afternoon with a roller coaster of emotions. The insurance company wanted to pick up both our cars and have them assessed (though they said they would be basically ”totaled”) .. no problem.. they cover a rental… except it was a problem … NO WHERE IN ALL OF FL are there rental cars. I’m so serious. Multiple places told me they have been influxed with volunteers for mostly ft Meyer and they have sent all the cars there. At first, I was really glad there were so many volunteers and then reality hit and my middle kid-ness felt the weight of it; that means those who need cars HERE can’t have one. I have never felt the weight of having the financial (aka insurance stipend) means to provide for my family and being told no you can not! I sobbed. I wasn’t ready for another reality that was just a lot to take in. It was also so uncomfortable that the guy on the phone kept telling me to let it all out.. I almost gave him a cheeky “let it all out” type response but decided to just say.. well thank you for being honest with the reality and ended the call as quickly as possible. I wish I could forget that one specific call, because it was the most awkward I’ve felt in a long time! Ha.
Then I got a new text that the RV trailer a friend was going to let us use was blocked by tree branches and they weren’t sure if they could get it to us. I sobbed again. Then jumped into organizing all the people to move the branches tomorrow morning.
I saw countless neighbors just almost pacing outside, not really making any significant “progress” on their houses. We spoke to a few and one thing that stood out to me.. in all the convos with neighbors, each person was willing to offer to help, even though they themselves were in need of help. It was crazy. I can’t judge motives nor do I want to but there’s something hard wired in us to have compassion and empathy for others and a desire to be cared for, seen, and loved in community. It’s hard to be seen and to be in the vunerable party on the receiving end of needing all the help.
I’m definitely learning a lot about asking these last few days!
I never got to take apart the bathroom today, but I did get to talk to neighbors and it was still a full day!
Tomorrow we anticipate a few friends coming to help and I’m so grateful! We need friends to be with us and to help us. The smell in the house is getting stronger and it’s feeling like we really need to get those kitchen and bathroom cabinets out asap!
We do have a bunch of needs for immediate house demo still, I’ll list here
-Dust masks
-Fans
-dehumidifier
-need a handful more plastic totes. Clear would be most helpful now since the last items are ones that we will need close by and seeing items is way easier!
– ear plugs
And here’s the immediate-ish amazon list. We know we will be in an RV trailer on our property soon. We don’t really know how long, but I know at least a couple weeks. And I can’t really live beyond that right now anyway!
I’ll update another list when I know more about what we need when we start living nearer to home. I’m looking forward to living with my neighbors again!
Prayers
-for a vehicle that we can borrow since there aren’t any rentals (and/or some creative solutions to this. Insurance covers $50 a day so we could get a minivan or something large to fit our family)
-for significant progress on the bathrooms and kitchen this week and maybe even finish the gutting this weekend so we can start the 2-3 week drying out process soon!
-for us to be able to live life with a balance of connection and task.
-for awareness of what our kids need and balance.
-for good nights of sleep and better boundaries of our time around that too..
– that our flood insurance company would get their system back up and running and processing claims asap.
– That we would be able to get our van towed to Honda and that maybe it would be a quicker fix verses throwing out a vehicle into the dump.. it feels so waste full and unnecessary if it can be fixed.
Tonight, my heart is full and I feel so carried by my community of people near and far! And I’m excited to tackle tomorrow (or later today at this point! ) also YOU are still a rockstar for reading this far!
Check out my list on https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/3TET6AQ6U3PYT?ref_=wl_share&fbclid=IwAR1Ac_t0K5M9ZpnBENYheZlZzgWQkFhdRsD1CCrP_dwZofWeFZ6Yn6ohyVk
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