43: Dear Oklahoma

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The front page of today’s Norman (Okla.) Transcript. Kudos to small newspapers like this one with overworked staffs that are serving their communities in important ways today.

I know that look on your faces, Oklahoma. I know it because I’ve had it, I’ve seen it, I’ve lived it.

Your life has been upended and your face tells the story: Shock. Pure, unmasked shock.. The tornado that ripped through Moore left you feeling as if today, you awoke on a planet other than your own. This is not your life. It’s not the way you left it. But it is what you now have to face and that is the most shocking thought of all.

I know this is true because six months after Hurricane Sandy wrecked my house, I am still processing how your life can go from utterly routine to completely unrecognizable in less than a day.

You look around and that which you once found so comforting –  home, community — are suddenly foreign, scary, dangerous. You seek out something familiar and when you find it, you embrace it — the neighbor down the street, a cracked dinner plate, a mangled stuffed animal.

You’re looking for normal but you’re not going to find it. Normal got swept up by that tornado, just as our normal got washed away by Sandy’s storm surge.

You’ll keep looking around you, overwhelmed, not knowing where to start, where to go, what tomorrow will be. Your routines, the heartbeat of every day that you had no idea you relied on so much, are gone. New ones will replace them, temporarily at least. You’ll become an expert at pulling things apart and tossing them away. You’ll unearth remnants of your former life and they will make you dizzy — a destroyed Christening gown, a ruined high school yearbook, smashed Christmas ornaments. The first discoveries will make your hands shake and your mind swirl. You’ll sit and cry or scream or punch something. But over time the pain becomes so constant that you don’t feel it’s sharp jab. You’ll see your destroyed wedding album and say, “Just toss it. It’s only stuff. We can replace stuff.”

That’s what the initial days will be like. But there’s one part of this story I can’t relate to, one that makes my heart deeply ache for you Oklahoma: The death. So much injury, so much young death, so many parents whose arms will be empty, their hearts ripped apart and leaving wounds that will never fully heal. The refrain that got us through Sandy — It could have been worse, At least no one was hurt — will not be your salve. Instead, your hurt will turn to unquenchable anger. You will go to dark places that I have not ventured to. I don’t know how you will rebuild your lives while trying to carry that loss as well. But I do know this: You will. What you now think is impossible somehow, with time, becomes endurable. The human spirit is stronger than you know at this moment. Six months from now you will look back and realize: I’ve endured much and somehow, I survived. I’m still angry, and I’m still hurt, but I’m here.

People will come to offer you their help. Take it. They will offer you free food and water and clothing, things you never in your life thought you’d be on the receiving end of. Accept it. If you’re lucky, someone will come in and take over what you cannot do. Let them. Walk away when you need to and come back when the time is right.

Try not to plan too far into the future. It’s May. You might already be thinking, “We can rebuild by the time the kids are back to school, right?” No, you won’t. But you don’t need to know that yet. Go into crisis mode. Don’t wait for the offers of help. If you have family nearby, think about whose roof you’d be best able to live under without losing your mind. Then ask them for huge favors. Your friends and family love you and they want to help but truly, they don’t know what to do. If you need money, ask for it. If you need a hot meal, ask. A bed? Ask. Childcare? Ask. Don’t hesitate. You’ll be shocked by how happy your candid requests make other people.

Register with FEMA. Call your insurance company as soon as you can. They will help you but they will not be the ones who save you. Their bureaucracy will be infuriating at times. That’s why you need to accept the help that comes from the easiest sources. Someone shoves money in your hand? Don’t be proud. Now is not the time for that. Later, when you are sitting where I am, another tragedy will happen and you’ll be the one writing the check. Today, you are the victim. Today, you need to do what you have to do to survive.

Cling close to those you love. During those first few days after Sandy, there was no greater comfort to me than my husband’s warm embrace during those cold, long, dark nights when my mind whirled with questions of how we’d rebuild our lives. At times during the recovery we were separated and those were definitely the darkest days. Keep those you love close to you. Let them know you love them. Hug often. It will help.

And as a warning, in these next few weeks and months you will simultaneously find yourself at your best and worst. You will endure, survive and create things you never imagined. But you will also face emotions you’ve never felt as intensely as you do now. Anger, fear, loathing — they will make you snap at your children, your spouse, make you want to run away from all the immense responsibility that is now upon you. During those moments, step back. Stop what you are doing. Figure out how to calm yourself down. And most of all, forgive yourself. There are many tomorrows ahead of you, ripe with opportunities to reclaim the person you once were.

Your community will take even longer to recover than you will. Every service you’ve come to rely on will feel as if it’s regressed 100 years. You will value electricity like you never have before. Your mail will feel as if it’s been delivered by the Pony Express. You might have to drive for miles to get food or water. Nothing will be easy and everything will exhaust you. Try to endure. Remind yourself that it won’t be this way forever.

You have tough days ahead, Oklahoma. You’ll find yourself crying at the most unexpected moments. The slightest inconvenience (and there will be many) will leave you flustered. Why can’t anything be easy? you’ll wonder. Why can’t I feel happy? Reach out to those around you. Your fellow survivors are about to become your kindred spirits. Voice your emotions, be it in a journal or on social media or the old fashioned way — with a long, possibly tear-soaked, conversation.

Repeat to yourself the mantra that got me through the darkest days: Every day is one day closer to normal.

I pray your normal finds you soon.

 

 

47: Bye-Bye Jabba

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Jabba

Me, two months ago.

Picture this: For six months, I was Jabba the Hutt, and my bedroom was my lair.

There were no dancing ladies, no rodents jamming on the harmonica, no princess in chains, just me, sprawled on my bed, sipping wine from a Styrofoam cup and eating Oreos whole, wishing I had a trap door to drop my contractor through. Grunting occasionally, muttering regularly, but mostly sitting. Lots and lots of sitting.

For months, I came home, walked up the steps, nuked food and tossed it on the floor for the kids to eat, uncorked a bottle of sanity and wallowed in the wreck that was my life. On good nights my husband was home to join me but many nights he wasn’t, and I either sat up playing endless rounds of Candy Crush or slouched over my computer keyboard trying to make more money and more money to cover our growing expenses.

These were not good times.

But now, the first floor of our home is liveable again. I can cook food, chop vegetables. The fridge is large enough to house a week’s supply of fresh fruit and an entire gallon of milk. I’ve remembered how to exhale.

And so I started running again. They say muscles hold a memory and yes, mine definitely have. From the jiggle of my once solid calves I knew I had to start from zero. I downloaded the Running Mate 5K 101 Training Program, popped in my earbuds and hit the thumbnail of a boardwalk we have left here in Arverne.

The first week you run for two minutes and walk for three minutes. That was easy. By week two it became sadly obvious how much muscle mass I had lost. Cardiovascularly I was able to keep up but my leg muscles seemed to develop a voice of their own. “Stop now, please, we have nothing left,” was their refrain. But by week three, I started to feel the strength come back. Today I started week four (four minute run, one minute walk, repeated five times) and while I was grateful that the last circuit ended, and a bit embarrassed by my slow speed, I felt stronger. And, interestingly, thinner. Even though I’m not.

The fact is that I’ve been so focused on maintaining mental strength throughout this disaster that I’ve neglected my body’s physical needs. From the foods I’ve wolfed down to the number of wine bottles that clanged in the kitchen trash, if my body is a temple mine was close to being put on the market as a short sale. I think that’s why this is the sickest winter I’ve ever had — the flu followed by a cold followed now by horrendous allergies. I feel physically weak because the truth is, I am physically weak. I started yoga again too and I can feel each muscle and ligament strain as they move in directions they haven’t been asked to go in seven months. While my mental fortitude is at its apex (and thank God for that) my body has paid the price.

This isn’t just a “me” thing. It’s a Sandy phenomenon My husband wrenched his back so badly a few months ago that he could not get out of bed. There’s no way physical stress was the sole cause of that agony. One friend’s husband was hospitalized with heart problems a few months after the storm. For a story I’m reporting about the aftermath of Sandy, a women emailed me this week to say how heartbroken she was over the number of funerals she’s been to since the storm. Older adults who survived the storm aren’t doing so well as they face its aftermath.

The physical stress is also written on our faces. Meet-ups with other Sandy people feel more like small talk during a wake than the joyful ebullience of running into someone you haven’t seen in a while. “Hi, how are you?” someone asked me the other day. Did I say “fine?” or “doing great?” No no. “Completely exhausted, if you really want to know,” was my answer. She responded with a nod and “me too.”

Getting back to running, remembering to take care of my body as I take care of the house and the kids and the husband and the job, is not easy. Honestly, it feels like one more thing that I have to get done. But it’s something that has to be done. I didn’t let Sandy break my spirit and I won’t let her break my body.

54: Fat Girls Should Not Drink Coolattas, and Other B.S.

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One-third left, but not for long.

One-third left, but not for long.

I’m sitting here drinking a Dunkin Donuts Coffee Coolatta, the one whose first sip shocked me with its sweetness, the one I at first ordered as a small and then said screw it, what I really want is a medium, and realized: It’s sweet. It’s good. And while my first inclination was to chastise myself for that, I’m not going to feel guilty about its high calorie, nutritionally vapid super-sized-ness. It is icy and sweet and satisfying and today, a day when I really need it, this Coolatta made me smile.

And there is nothing wrong with that.

I’m drinking the Coolatta, and perhaps more relevantly, writing about the Coolatta, because after six months of days pock-marked by anxiety, sucker punches, loss, waiting, disappointment and frustration, I’ve decided that if something brings you joy, embrace it. Life isn’t to be endured. It’s to be lived. Enjoyed. Embraced. Sipped, if necessary.

When I first tasted that Coolatta, I said to myself, ‘Oh that’s yum. But oh no, I won’t drink it all.” Not that I couldn’t drink it all. But that I shouldn’t. Desserts and candy and sweets and pretty much anything that’s a joy to eat are for skinny people, not a girl like me who sighed in frustration when she stepped on the bathroom scale this morning. Just this week I interviewed two nutrition experts who spoke about metabolism and the evils of blood sugar surges. Sugar makes us fat! Sugar triggers appetite! Sugar is the enemy.

That all might be true but you know what is a proven fact? Sugar is awesome. And I deserve awesome. So I’m drinking my Coolatta. I’ll slurp it until it makes that rattling noise that let’s you know that sadly, it’s all gone. And then hopefully I’ll find something else today that makes me smile, be it taking my kids to the playground or buying them ice cream (our Friday ritual) or just feeling the sun on my face and the breeze — warm finally! — on my bare arms.

Today a Coolatta made me smile. I hope you find — and seek out — your own Coolatta moment today.

 

56: Get in Your Neighbor’s Business

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Desiree and Chrissy, my cohorts during those wild summer days. (This is obviously not a summer picture but the only one I could find.)

Desiree and Chrissy, my cohorts during those wild summer days. (This is obviously not a summer picture but the only one I could find.)

This week I enrolled my kids in summer camp for the first time. Every weekday morning they’ll get on a bus and spend the day swimming, playing sports and going on field trips. It sounds much better than just hanging around the house and watching mom work but at the same time, something about it saddens me. First, I worry. The bus! Day trips as part of a large crowd and far beyond my watchful eye! And second, I wish for their sake that they could have the summers I had as a child.

I never went to camp as a kid. My mom or one of my grandmothers (one lived downstairs, the other a block away) was always around to watch us. And the Brooklyn streets were filled with kids home for the summer so who needed any organized activities? We roller-skated up on Seventh Avenue in front of the co-ops, where the pavement was newer and smooth. We rode our bikes down Dead Man’s Hill in Sunset Park (no helmets). We ran barefoot through the alleys behind the co-ops, shunning shoes only to heighten the thrill. We climbed over fences to steal a neighbor’s roses and then played “He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not” about whatever boy was paying us any attention that week. We stayed out until the street lights came on and then, on the hottest summer nights, came out again after dark. The adults would join us, an impromptu block party filled with swapped gossip and, because it was Brooklyn and you had to keep it interesting, the occasional heat-triggered brawl.

The adults were there to feed us, give us a Band-aid when we needed it and scold when we were risking bodily harm but otherwise we were wonderfully, gloriously, independent. These memories are bittersweet because I know my own kids will never have this experience. Part of it is my own phobias — if I let them out of my sight what would stop a depraved maniac (thank you, Cleveland psychos) from snatching them up? But a bigger part of it is that most neighborhoods just don’t  have the same heartbeat that they had all those years ago. I knew who lived in every house on my block. We looked out for each other. We were completely in each other’s business. There was so much less to worry about because if my mother’s eyes weren’t on me, someone else’s was.

I asked my mother recently if the Etan Patz kidnapping (boy abducted the first day he walks to the school bus by himself), which occurred when I was about 7 years old, phased her. No, she said. Not at all. That happened in Manhattan, which was a world away from our close-knit Brooklyn enclave. The thought that something like that could happen in Sunset Park, where everyone knew everyone, didn’t even enter her mind. I envy that mindset.

In the days after Sandy, my neighbors and I roamed outside our homes like zombies. My neighborhood is unique in that seven years ago, it didn’t even exist. So there are no generations of families close-by or even retirees who keep their eyes open while the rest of us are at work. I know everyone well enough to wave hello but before Sandy many neighbors were just a face without a name. After the storm, we were hugging each other and crying in the street. We’re walking in and out of each other’s homes as if they were an extension of our own. It felt familiar and I liked it.

Six months later, things are back to the way they were. Lots of waves and hi’s but fewer conversations. I think we’re tired of talking about the same topic — Sandy — but I also think we’ve gone on with our lives and creating privacy within the big city is what feels normal to us. But the news this week of three women imprisoned in a home for 10 years, much to the shock of their neighbors, convinces me that we need to be in each other’s business again, spending more time with our windows open and chatting on our front stoops on warm summer nights.

So be warned, my neighbors. I’m going to make an effort to be friendlier. I’m going to be braver and let my kids play outside more often, maybe even without my constant gaze. If you see them, feel free to stop them from darting into the street for a lost ball or tell them to pipe down if they’re causing a racket. Let’s chat, let’s get to know each other better, and let’s help each other out in good times as well as bad. I think that will lead to a greater sense of security for me and a more independent childhood for my kids. Because my goal, beyond all others, has to be to teach my kids how to function independently in the world rather than how to shelter from it.

 

61: Looking for Sandy Survivors

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Today is two months to my 40th birthday. And so as the clock ticks I’m going to do something bold: I’m going to try to write a book.

I plan to weave together the stories of several Sandy survivors to create a narrative that tells the honest, true and unfiltered story of what we’ve been through and how we are rebuilding our lives.There’s value in people outside the “Sandy bubble” understanding what it feels like when a disaster upends your life, what challenges you face that are completely out of your control and how you muster the strength and courage to put your life back together. And federal and local government, as well as the insurance industry, needs to be held accountable for their handling of the disaster. Because unfortunately, Sandy won’t be the last natural disaster. There are lessons to be learned here but only if we’re courageous enough to share them.

To accomplish this, I need your help. The first step is writing a book proposal that outlines my plan for the book and includes the first couple of chapters. I want it to be filled with stories of real people and true experiences, which means I need to talk to as many people as possible. Did you evacuate? If not, why? What did you see and feel that you never want to see and feel again? If you did evacuate, what did you come back to and how did that affect you?

Willing to share your story? Please email me at sandy@cynthiaramnarace.com or message me through Facebook. Know someone with an amazing Sandy survival story? Please encourage them to contact me.

We have a story. It should be told. I would be honored to be the one to tell it. Thanks in advance for help.

65: Six Months Later

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After six months, finally a new kitchen.

On Saturday, I asked the cashier at a Rockaway gift shop if she could wrap my purchase. I used to have a huge container of gift wrap supplies but now, I don’t. She gave me that knowing look and we commiserated about how frustrating, and sometimes sad, it is when you think you have something but then remember — No, Sandy took that too.

While driving home I saw two newly demolished homes, the bulldozers still parked on the sidewalk. Six months later and there are people who are just starting to move forward.

Everywhere cars and homes are covered with fine layers of sand. With no boardwalk to catch it, the sand now just blows down the streets and sometimes, into your eyes.

Friends came over Friday night and the majority of the evening was spent discussing home renovations, contractor complaints and, although I mistakenly thought there was nothing left to tell, the night of the storm and what it sounds like when floating cars smash into the side of your house.

If you leave the Sandy zone, Sandy is history. But six months later here in Rockaway, Sandy is alive.

We are waiting to hear back on our second appeal to the flood insurance company, which we believe low-balled our settlement by at least 25 percent. We’re waiting to finalize a Small Business Administration loan that will help us cover the difference between what we’ve spent and what we still owe our contractor and still need to purchase. Every morning the kids ask me, “Will the workers be here today?” and I say I have no idea. Trying to get my contractor to come and finish the bathroom, the lighting and other items on the punch list is an exercise in nagging, persistence and unanswered texts.

But things are better. The kids are back on the t-ball fields. My daughter’s dance recital is just weeks away. Vegetables are planted in the community garden and the boardwalk concessions are being rebuilt. The thought of frozen sangria on the beach or fresh tomatoes from the garden conjure up a feeling that’s been lacking over the last six months: unfiltered joy.

It’s a feeling I have when we sit on the couch and watch grown-up TV after the kids go to bed. I can make oatmeal and omelets in the morning and Annie’s Bunny Pasta for lunch (Does my son need any other food? In his mind, no). Not once since we got our kitchen back did I have to crawl on my knees and dig around for food in the refrigerator. We’ve rebuilt and we’ve made it better than it was before.

But as I wipe down those long-wished-for quartz countertops, that joy is measured. Yes, I have the kitchen I’ve always wanted and angels sing in my head now that I can sweep up the kids’ spilled cereal instead of pulling out the vacuum. But don’t tell me I’m better off now. Given the choice between this reality and the one I so happily lived before, I’d go back. Give me back my dishwasher that sounded like it was fueled by a marching band and the carpet that started beige and thanks to various spills turned “leopard print.” I’d give it all back for not having to walk through the gauntlet that was the last six months. It was hard and I did not like it. Not one bit.

I feel older, which can be positive. I feel more mature and capable of handling life’s dips and dives. But in other ways I just feel old. I can see Sandy on my face — the dark circles under my eyes, the deeper wrinkles, the worry lines. I can feel her in my back when I roll over at night or scoop to pick up something off the ground. I sense her in my soul when I choose to stay in instead of go out, or roll away from my husband instead of towards him. Sandy took something from me, something I’m not sure I can ever replace.

Someday, however, this experience will move from reality to memory. The sun warm on my arms, the sea-scented air gently swirling around my neck, kids building sandcastles and digging giant sand pits will all help bring me there. Being done with insurance and contractors will as well. But six months later, those of us who were so deeply impacted are still living Sandy.

68: Should I Write a Book?

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Could my name someday be on one of these shelves?

Yesterday, acting on the urge to spice up my life, I tried to sell literary agents on the idea of my writing a book about Sandy.

In the Grand Ballroom of the Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown Thursday morning sat about 40 literary agents and editors engaged in a four-hour speed pitching marathon. Writers have 10 minutes each to dazzle or be despaired. As a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, I was eligible to bid for sessions with this hard-nosed group, many of them bespectacled women in top-buttoned blouses and no-nonsense shoulder-length bobs.

I met with six agents, the middlemen who help midwife a book proposal and then sell the idea to a publishing house. I brought with me a mental list and some quickly devised notes about what my Sandy book would be. But the truth is, I have no idea what my Sandy book should be.

The day before the conference I tried, as I do with so much in my life, to find the answer on Facebook. What would interest people about Sandy a year from now? I asked. My journalist friends encouraged me to do the book I had in mind — a narrative nonfiction reconstruction of events of the storm, the emergency response and rebuilding told through the stories of four different Sandy survivors (myself and… any volunteers?). Then with that weave in some wonky policy information about failures in the federal response and what we can learn from this to help make future disasters less onerous for the survivors. It would be textbook New Journalism. Call Tracy Kidder and get me a lunch.

Another friend of mine, a former literary agent, said no no no. You have to think cinematic. Write “The Perfect Storm” about Sandy! Create composite characters if necessary and craft a breathless dramatization based on real events that allows you the freedom to control the story arc. (Facts can be so pesky in that regard.) Or, he said, find a compelling real story that just happens to have Sandy as a backdrop. A death, a mystery or a love story — maybe my own love story? He implied that my story could carry the whole book but I’m skeptical. What makes my story compelling, I believe, is how universal it was to the entire Sandy experience. It doesn’t have the jaw-dropping “we swam to safety as the fires roared” appeal. It’s a story repeated in stripped-to-studs houses down the New York/New Jersey shoreline. So meh, I don’t know.

As I pitched the agent responses ranged from “I think you have an interesting idea” (Gong! Next contestant) to “Here is my card. Send me a book proposal right away.” I think in general agents were attracted to the idea of a first-hand account. But they also want to know who my other characters would be. And where does the book end? I feel the story is still happening so how do I write without knowing the end point?

In a particularly cogent piece of advice, one agent told me that I was focused on story but did not have a theme. “What is the question you are answering?” she said. “What is the question that will pull the reader through the narrative?”

It’s an excellent question and today, I have only one answer, based solely on my experience: How do you find normal again? All around you so much is the same yet totally, forever changed. How will we ever go to the beach again and not feel shivers of fear when we a wave knocks us off our feet? How long before we stop looking for things that were forever lost? Will we ever be able to sleep through a summer storm again? When I think about it cinematically in that regard, I come up with a riff on “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” Everything is the same but because of our memories, forever changed.

And then there’s this very important question: Do I want to write a book? I wrote one once, a novel, and was never able to get an agent and hence, it never sold. That still stings. Do I have it in me to invest myself emotionally in the book proposal process? To risk putting all that work in for nothing? To risk being rejected? I have a writer-friend who has been trying to sell a book proposal for over a year. I doubt I have that kind of stamina.

But then things like this happen: One of the agents I met yesterday emailed me (unheard of; usually it’s the writers begging for attention) to repeat that as soon as I have a book proposal he’s very interested in seeing it.

Which makes me think big thoughts: Is this my time? Someone will write a Sandy book. Why not me? But that very thought makes me shiver with that fear you feel when you’re about to bungee jump off a building. It’s potentially exhilarating and definitely terrifying and has a slight chance of being the worst decision you’ve ever made.

So should I write a book? And if so, what kind of book? I am very open to suggestions. Comment here, on Facebook or email me: web@cynthiaramnarace.com. What do people need to know? What would keep them turning the pages?

 

72: Finding Normal

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Finally, a couch to lounge on. But relaxation has been elusive.

Last week I wanted to boil a pound of pasta. I looked for my stock pot and then remembered — I don’t have one anymore.

My husband and I sit on the couch at the end of a long day and it feels awkward. This place I’d yearned for, this space between work and sleep, feels foreign. What do we do? How do we do it? We’ve forgotten how to relax.

I can barely stand walking into my children’s rooms. In my son’s room is a huge moving box full of kitchen supplies that I forage through on a daily basis as I look for a bottle of olive oil to cook those inaugural chicken cutlets or my collection of plastic containers that I know I have… somewhere.

In the morning I grab what were once my favorite pair of jeans and sigh. Zipping these on once gave me such joy. Now they force me to inhale deeply and be grateful for that little bit of Spandex in the fabric.

Every day is a hunt for something that’s been lost, a search for the next piece in the puzzle that will recreate my vision of normal life. But what is normal anymore?

This morning I went for a run/walk (mostly walk) along the boardwalk. The section of boards from about Beach 67th to Beach 81st is the one of the only stretches that did not get unearthed by the storm. Before Sandy, an early morning run was one of my greatest joys. The sky so blue, the waves lapping rhythmically, hopefully a few surfers to watch slice across the water. Now I look at the waves and feel angry and scared. How will I ever feel the tug of the water against my body, sense the inherent power that upended my life, and not shudder with fear? I watch the waves crash and feel battered again.

“Normal,” my husband told me recently, “isn’t something we’re going to wake up to one day. It’s going to happen in small shifts until suddenly, one day, there we are.” This weekend I got a full set of pots and pans. Sid cleaned out the garage and started reorganizing what remains. Hopefully this weekend I’ll be able to start hanging coats in the closet, instead of keeping them in a pile on the floor, and switch out my kids winter clothes so they stop causing a textile eruption from their overstuffed drawers.

For months, rebuilding our home has been the priority. Now, finding normal means rebuilding ourselves as well. When my muscles ache after a morning run, I know I’m doing something good for my body. This week we’re giving up the horrendous eating habits we’ve adopted over the last six months and are excitedly going back to counting points, gorging on produce and banning carbs. I’m getting my nails done and putting on make-up every day. Small things, but feel-good things.

But as I try to bring elements of my old life into my new life I wonder: Do they feel right? Do they fit?

What was will never be again. But what is to be is ours to create. So I’m going to keep practicing at couch-sitting until it feels right. I’ll keep running until those jeans zip effortlessly. And I’m going to remain focused on doing what feels right for me, for my body and for my family. And slowly, I’ll find normal.

 

 

 

84: Starting Today, My Luck Will Change

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And we all walked away.

If I say it will it make it so? Or am I just jinxing myself? I guess time will tell. But here is why I think today is the day.

One year ago yesterday the whole family got into the car to drive Sid to the airport. He was leaving for a week-long business trip to China.

“Damn it,” he said. “I forgot my wedding ring.”

I sat quietly for a moment beside him. We had just passed through Broad Channel and were close enough to turn around without being late for his flight. He hates not having his ring with him. I hate his not wearing his ring, especially when he’s traveling. On business. Without me. So I said those fateful words:

“Do you want to turn around and get it?”

He pointed our brand-new gunmetal-colored Ford Explorer toward home. As the car in front of us moved into the left shoulder lane, I remember my brain registering, “that’s odd.” Then when she started to make a right turn from the far left lane, an electrical storm went off in my head. What is she doing? Where is she going? Why doesn’t she see us? A shock wave plowed through the car. As quickly as the airbags exploded they were gone, inflated then deflated, a cloud of white dust filling my nose, coating my hands. The air was pungent with smoke and burned rubber. From the backseat, the car filled with my children’s screams. I was relieved to hear their voices, knowing that if they could speak then what I’d see would not be a nightmare. It’s okay it’s okay it’s okay I said, over and over, as much to them as to me. There was no blood, no broken bones. I opened the door and we all stepped out.

We stood shivering on Cross Bay Boulevard outside of the American Legion Hall where, months later, I’d be filling out Hurricane Sandy-related paperwork. Sid screamed at the other driver. She screamed back. Friends and family showed up; police and an ambulance too. My shaking hands were reverberations of the earthquake in my soul. What had just happened? How? Why? But we’re all okay? How? Why?

I was black-and-blue and badly bruised but otherwise fine. Sid’s hands swelled up to cartoonish proportions. The kids had some minor whiplash and scrapes but otherwise were physically unscathed. The car had saved us. Had we chosen to take our other, smaller car, and had it been the one to collide with a steel flatbed, we definitely would not have been as lucky. Had our previous car not died mysteriously six months before, leading us to buying this new five-star crash-rated tank, we might not have fared as well. It was a horrible experience but we were so lucky. So, so lucky.

Fast forward six months. Another horrible experience, but we were so, so lucky. We evacuated and so our children did not live out the horrors of the night Sandy hit. We had insurance which, while it’s definitely no white knight, is better than being without. And we have each other. All four of us, we are all here, we are all strong, we are all resilient.

A year later, I’m claiming that my string of misfortunes will come to an end. Things will get better from here. This weekend I’m reclaiming my almost-finished kitchen. We’re continuing to fight for insurance funds and it looks like we won’t be turned down completely. My business has been doing well and work has been steady.

As I write this, though, I realize: What if I’ve actually been lucky all along? What if a lucky life isn’t one where nothing bad ever happens, but rather one where you experience the bad but somehow survive, endure and become stronger because of it?

I need to think on that for a moment.

So let’s not say my luck will change today. But maybe, instead, my story will. It’s been an eventful year. I wouldn’t mind it if things suddenly got really boring. I’m ready for my response to “How are you?” to be “I’m good. How about you?” I’m ready for the mundane, for Saturday nights spent catching up on TV instead of filling out paperwork and afternoons spent folding laundry instead of wandering the aisles of Lowe’s. So bring on boring. I’m ready to be the one who doesn’t have a story to tell.

86: Would I Want to be 20 Again?

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Out boozing in Boston, this time without fake IDs, drinking wine instead of $2 beers and sporting a blazer.

As I walked down Boston’s Commonwealth Avenue this weekend, I had the uneasy sense that I was not alone. I strode past Warren Towers, Boston University’s unbearably large dorm where I lived my freshman year. I saw myself waiting for the elevator to the 18th floor, staring at my cellblock walls and wishing my boyfriend would call so I wouldn’t feel so lonely. I went past the College of Communication, where I worked on electric typewriters in Journalism 101. I recalled the days when my coffee habit first began – those 8 a.m. classes I started taking junior year – and the no-name convenience store that fed my newfound addiction in a world that was not yet familiar the words “Starbucks” or “venti extra foam.”

As I continued down the avenue on my way to a writing conference, I realized that the presence I felt was the shadow of my  20-year-old self. While I’d walked this route so many times, I had never walked it as this person: Adult, professional, accomplished and no longer wishing that the ATM dispensed $5 bills because I only had $9 in my bank account. I walked in lockstep with my younger self, the one rushing by, late as usual, in sneakers and a black Jansport backpack overfilled with textbooks and wirebound notebooks. That person had no idea what the next 20 years would hold. This person knows, and the story is a good one.

Would I want to be that 20-year-old again? The one unaware of how many different places I’d live, who had no clue she’d be fired from her first reporting job, the one who had no idea that she’d wind up a statistic in a natural disaster? The one who didn’t yet know how many awe-inspiring experiences she had ahead of her, how many tough decisions she’d have to make? Would I want to erase all this knowledge, clean the slate and start fresh?

To be 20 again… It would be nice to not have this ache in my back yet or be woken at 1 a.m. by a mind overrun by schedules and obligations. But in truth I have now what the 20-year-old me desperately wanted: two decades’ worth of confidence, a well filled by a stream of experiences, success, failures and choices. That is worth the accumulated body aches and sleepless nights.

The night I graduated college, a few months shy of my 21st birthday,  I sat on the bed in my sparsely furnished apartment and sobbed. I was so scared of the place where I was, which was nowhere. I was done with school but didn’t have a job lined up. And once I did get a reporting job, I was petrified that I wouldn’t have the skills required to be as great as I wanted to be. I felt like I was in free fall with no idea when I would land, or whether the landing would be soft, bumpy or leave me battered.

My now-husband held me and sympathized and said those words I needed to here: You’ll make it happen. And he was right. I did. Today I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, juggling much more than I did as an undergrad and doing it with little breakage. These are accomplishments only made possible by the earned experience of time.

That 20-year-old girl will always be a part of who I am. Heck, I still can’t seem to get anywhere on time unless I do it in a mad rush. But no, I don’t want to go back there. Bring on 40. I’m ready to move ahead.