One Year Later

The kids are alright

It’s been 364 days since our fire: tomorrow is the fire-versary. We are back in our house as of about a month ago!

This day feels like a huge milestone. It’s been one year of lost control, clinging to any semblance of stability, rewriting on the fly. Why we were chosen for this fate, I will never know.

I do know that because of this experience I can do what I do best as an enneagram 2, which is help others in need. It’s my primary motivator. I helped my family cope and I have helped others who have gone through fires, and even other tragedies. A lightning strike helped me hone my emergency preparedness help for others - didn’t have that one on my bingo card.

Overwhelm arrived so quickly over the last year, and it came from a number of directions. Regular life stress doesn’t go away if something big happens along the way. My perspective of what is and isn’t important has changed, so in some ways I sweat less about the small stuff, but I was never a person who was particularly anxious to begin with.

What I could have done better is find more outlets for my stress along the way. Over the last several years I have occasionally taken solo trips to clear my head, picked up new hobbies, and read a lot of books as ways to relieve the pressure. In the last year I did start doing some yoga, especially restorative yoga, which very much helps me destress and recharge. I wish I had done more endorphin-producing activities. After this type of acute trauma my brain cells were just so fried and really needed regenerative time more frequently than I provided it.

I don’t know how my spouse is doing, really. I think he is on his own journey and processes things so differently from me. The most I can do is be available to listen if that is needed, and try to be a healthy version of myself. I am not ashamed or embarrassed to say this has been a strain on our marriage. No one knows how they’re going to process a massive shift like not knowing where you are going to sleep tonight and for the foreseeable future, especially when that comes with making sure your young padawans are okay.

But the kids … they’re actually alright. I give myself some credit for being calm and stable for them so they know they have a safe place to land. They kept growing, going to counseling as they needed it, developing new issues and resolving others, going through the normal growing pains - and they’re alright. No worse for the wear as of now, I would say, and we’ll see down the road how resilient they are. We’ve given them the gift of enough cushion and space to bounce around a bit in life and be able to generally come out only a little bruised.

In a year, I’ve:

• Had a place to live, not known where I was going to live, lived in a rental house, and lived back in my old but new and different house

• Been unemployed and employed

• Felt I could handle anything and nothing at all

• Helped my kids grow from one grade to the next, one age to the next

• Seen my home and personal belongings designated as trash and had to create a new version of “home” from scratch, and decide what belongings I really needed

• Worried about my parents

• Seen the world change drastically around me

My youngest told me that we should celebrate tomorrow because it’s been a year since our fire. From the mouths of babes … I am so thankful for their reframing of this anniversary so we can go into the next year of our lives knowing we’ve survived.

Above - everything here other than the cactus and Echo Show are from a consignment shop - love that we reused things.

Below - Microwave drawer - very cool but maybe not the most practical!

And my favorite view, the front entry … still needs some finishing touches and I thought the dining room light fixture would be much longer, but someday we’ll extend it.