Monday, July 13, 2009

Step by step...

And no, not the NKOTB song…

Everyone has looked back at their life an analyzed the moments where we should have turned left instead of turning right on our path in life. Especially as we get older or if we had a huge life altering moment—and I have had both—many times. But none as great or haunting as the 2 years leading up to and the 2 years after August 29, 2005.

No, I was not in the storm, I didn’t live in the aftermath (but I did visit shortly after) and I didn’t lose anyone close to me in the events. I am haunted nonetheless because I was supposed to be there. Had we not needed to get out of New Orleans to save my sanity and my marriage we would have been there until July 2006, instead of taking special circumstance orders and leaving June 1, 2005.

On top of that I have endless guilt of the life I chose to abandon 15 years earlier, was erased off the maps. All the things I took for granted to always be exactly in the same state I left it on the occasional trips down to Mississippi were forever changed.

I could make this in to a long list of regrets and what ifs, but I choose not to. I simply needed to get thoughts to paper to purge them from my mind.

You see I started reading Breach of Faith last night as I huddle next to m fire pit. The stories made my heart ache, even more so because they were unnecessary. In them I search for people I knew while working for a skilled nursing unit at East Jefferson Hospital, patients or fellow co-workers, for some sign that they were ok.

I continued reading it before I fell asleep (note to self NEVER read true accounts of horrible events before bed) and had nightmares all night about trying to save people out of the rushing flood waters and them just slipping out of my grasp.

So, I needed to purge these things in order to not let them bring me down today—I just hope it works.

Oh, I think this will be the last of the Katrina books I read for a while. I think I have successfully tormented myself for the guilt now.

No comments: