Ever had a period of time where you just felt unstoppable? You were accomplishing big things, working on your personal and professional growth, and hard work felt good because you were making traction? It’s an awesome place to be. It’s where I was up until just after my birthday last year.

This is one picture I could find from that period of time when I really felt like I was firing on all cylinders.

I woke up in the mornings ready to go, ready to get my workout done. Sometimes I would listen to self improvement podcasts while I ran, sometimes I would listen to music. I was journaling regularly and documenting all of my workouts. Practicing yoga, meditating almost daily (it was a goal, meditation is difficult for me) I had just accomplished a years-in-the-making goal of moving to Nashville and simultaneously been promoted. I had started on several other long term goals. I felt good about where Dean and I were, I was moving closer to my family, Jake was loving our new place with the balcony he could go out on without human supervision, everything was really exciting.

I’m not going to talk about the events of the fire, because I’ve covered them in other entries, and quite frankly, I’m tired of them. I’m sure you are too. But there is something very illuminating about a few months of hindsight and I am starting to see some changes that I really hadn’t seen before. It’s these observations that I’m going to begin to explore today.

In September, I went to a Women's Writers Conference (and it remains one of the best things I’ve done for myself this year). One of the many ‘open to all’ readings and panels examined memoirs. Three very different authors read from their own writings and then did a Q&A. One of the women had written about her time as a casting assistant for a reality show and she was asked how she chose what experiences from her life to write about. Her answer stayed with me. She said that it wasn’t so much what to write about as when to write about it. When you’re in the middle of something, or not quite emotionally removed from it, you can’t really look back at that person you once were and watch her deal with all of these things, because you’re still dealing. You’re still her.

When people express sympathy about the fire, I admit to minimizing it. Because we are okay now. And it could have been so much worse! We are better off than a lot of people who were in the building. I felt that I was over it. Sometimes I don’t even feel like I deserve to claim ‘trauma.’

A few things that happened behaviorally after that incident.

I stopped listening to motivational, self-improvement podcasts. Completely. Like, I used to eat them up. I wasn’t even remotely interested anymore. I didn’t want to hear Robin Sharma telling me to get up at 5am and ask myself to examine and appreciate the lesson I was supposed to be learning from this obstacle.
I stopped recording my workouts and completely stopped journaling. Part of this is because suddenly I didn’t have my bullet journal. Part of this is because my workouts were completely derailed for a while and I just didn’t see the point. I also did not have the mental bandwidth. It suddenly seemed like a waste of time to record my workouts and like I didn’t have time to journal.
I stopped meditating. But, but, but… shouldn’t this be when you need to meditate? Maybe. But it was something that I was trying to make into a habit. It had not yet become a habit. It still felt like work to me and honestly, it didn’t even occur to me. In those first few weeks/months, everything was so much about just day to day survival and getting our feet under us that it took everything just to deal with day in, day out.
I kept writing. It was the only ‘new’ habit I hung on to. And I’m thankful. I believe it helped.
I stopped doing yoga. This one is really difficult for me to admit. Part of this is because I didn’t have anywhere to practice yet other than by myself at home. I’ve never been good at that during the best of times. I have done it alone, but generally it’s when I’m feeling very happy and playful. Or trying out a sequence to teach. When I’m trying to work through stuff, I prefer to let someone else to lead me.
I kept running. I have run since I was a kid. And you really don’t need much equipment for it. Not running is more painful than running. And it can be it’s own form of meditation.

I did think about the things I had let go occasionally. Every now and then I would chide myself, but, to my credit, I decided maybe that wasn’t what I needed to work on right now. I was working on other things. I let it go.

Indeed, I have been working on a lot of other things I finished a large writing project, studied for, tested for and obtained two huge certifications, became financially productive in a new city, made friends as well as other major and minor emotional hurdles. I feel like I’m gaining some traction.

Interestingly enough, just a few weeks ago, I started listening to the podcasts again. I started meditating occasionally again, spontaneously breaking out into yoga sequences on my own. And I’ve thought maybe it might be time to journal every so often again. I’ve started attending writers meet-ups around the city. I’m starting to wake up and want to get going again rather than wanting to linger in bed.

Jake immediately claimed the tree, even though I had yet to put any ornaments on it.

Last weekend was great. I had finished a trying week, a friend came over Friday night and we talked about some things that I had on my mind and she gave me some great advice, “I’m feeling very wise right now!” she declared, and she was correct. Our awesome neighbors invited us to a Friendsgiving on Saturday and so we had a great day beginning with my run in the park, then coffee at our new favorite ‘after long run’ place, then we cooked and then we all went to Friendsgiving! We had a brief hang out with them upon returning home and then I got the Christmas decorations out of the closet because I just felt so full of love for everyone!

Sunday morning started nicely. It was a rest day from running, Dean and I were intentionally lazy, I even brought us breakfast in bed. Jake was cuddled up with us and I was reading over Dean’s shoulder when a very loud, obnoxious sound begin blaring and wouldn’t stop. I thought I recognized the sound, but no. Couldn’t be. I ran part way down the stairs and saw that the red box was active. The big red box above the front door. The same one that went off in our old place in March. I kind of flipped out.

A still from a short video I took mostly to capture all the noise that was happening.

I ran outside where my neighbors were starting to poke their heads out and began pointing at the burned out building where we had lived for such a short time saying, “this is what happened over there!” A few of my neighbors were saying that they thought they saw smoke coming out of the back of our building, but I couldn’t see anything. While I was dashing around frantically looking for smoke, Dean had put shoes on and grabbed Jake and the car keys. We went outside and met our neighbor Ryan, who had brought us to Friendsgiving, and his dogs. Ryan and I tried to call our building manager (it was Sunday, no one in the building) and she eventually answered and I told her that the alarm was going off. Even I could hear the total panic in my voice. She said that the on-call maintenance guy would be there soon. Dean put me and Jake in the car and at some point brought me shoes, socks and a jacket. Fire trucks started arriving.

Here’s the thing; there was no smoke, no smell of smoke, I could see no smoke or flames. Everyone was pretty much just standing outside or putting their animals in their cars to get them away from the noise and out of the way of the firemen. The apartment manager even called me back to tell me that everything was going to be fine, that these alarms go off more frequently than you would think, and the fire I had experienced was the only time that it had been a real fire in a very long while. I knew all of this to be true and yet, I was sitting in the car crying and shaking.

The firemen (and firewoman! She was there too!) didn’t find anything and reset the alarm. They had checked very thoroughly but told us not to hesitate to call again if something happened. Everyone went back inside and went back to their days. Just a minor interruption for everyone else. Prior to this, I had been looking forward to putting up the rest of the Christmas decorations. I did not want to do that now. I did not want to do anything. I felt very tired and inexplicably sad. Dean asked if I wanted to go get coffee, I didn’t want to leave, he asked if I wanted him to go bring coffee back, I didn’t want him to leave. He ended up making french press coffee for me and then we watched nature shows for an hour. After that, he was ready to do something else, so I went for a long walk and tried to get out in the sun and snap myself out of it, but it didn’t work. I was still sad, tired for no reason and didn’t want to do anything.

Fortunately, a friend who had seen my frantic Facebook posts from when I was freaking out in the car texted to ask if I was okay. After a little back and forth, she said that crying is exhausting and fear is exhausting and that if I was able to, I should give myself the day. I tried to. We went to bed early. I had a nightmare that my neighbor Chase and I were in my car and that there were crazy, end-of-days level storms happening all around us. Airplanes crashing out of clouds, heaving winds and rains, etc. Dean wasn’t there and Ryan (Chase’s husband) couldn’t get home. I wanted to go in and get Jake but didn’t know if I could get to the apartment. We tried to move the car to a more sheltered location and there was snow in some spots getting in our way. (Lately, my nightmares have been including snow.) I really wanted to go in and get Jake. I’m not clear on what happened next, that may have been when I woke up.

It took me until Monday afternoon to shake this feeling of sadness. It had me a little worried, even after trying to tell myself to be patient and let myself feel the feelings. I hadn’t realized how much of that event was still in there to be processed.

Looking back, I don’t think that I was ‘done’ with those behaviors that I was trying to cultivate. I think that I had more immediate damage control to do and perhaps I wasn’t ready to process the derailment. I’ve always been resilient, and I think that there was part of me that was pushing to ‘just get past it’ and get things done. Regardless, I was not ready to be whacked upside the head with it.

But, as Patti said during that text conversation, “that’s how trauma is. It just smacks you.”

Physically, everything is fine. The inflammation has gone down. I was so inflamed in the months immediately following the fire that my bras were not fitting and two pairs of brand new leggings I had been sent in my normal size didn’t fit at all. (They are now my favorite leggings, I am wearing them currently.) I’m very rarely hit with the smell of smoke when I pull out a pot or open the microwave. Once Jake was back inside and there was no blaring alarm, he was perfectly fine, chowing down food and sleeping in the sun, so he’s not traumatized. Physically, it’s all fine.

What’s the takeaway from all of this? I guess I’m trying to say that you can be resilient and strong and still need time and recovery. Yes, I’ve still been getting things done and accomplishing goals, but there were a couple of times that I had to ‘turn in B+ work’ to use a phrase from one of those podcasts. Sometimes you’re still undergoing repairs and 100% isn’t realistic, but you can still do well. And if you want to, you’ll get back to where you were. Just give yourself time. Sometimes more than you think.

Trauma and hindsight. Climbing out of the forest, looking back at the trees.