I wanted to say that when I started writing, it was from the beginning, things that I remember, wrote down at the time, and/or rehash over and over in my head. I am hoping that at some point there will be an ending. We are currently 5 week and 4 days out from the storm. Granted we are still homeless, and one car down but we are sheltered, clothed, well fed, and have reliable transportation. We are working, going to school, and even finding time write a blog. The city is still badly damaged and as best I can describe it is that the local government, our community citizens, and local businesses are acting as a band aid holding this big gaping wound together. I still cry most every day, sometimes twice a day. I drive through the damaged section several times a day, looking for any sign of new construction or clean-up. AND as much as I hate to, I have to remind people that I am a survivor and still not up to 100 % yet. I hate being vulnerable and I hate having to remind people but they forget so easily.
So back to the story I suppose. Thank goodness we were still looking for rental houses when we found out the first one was rented out from under us. This next house was not as well suited for us but at this point we didn’t care, it was good enough. It did need a few things done to it before we could move in but the guy seemed willing to do this. We started an application and planned on trying to get things moved in within 2 weeks or so. The storage unit was rented so we were able to have a temporary place to store our belongings. Finally, some peace for our busy minds, our concentration could go towards arguing with the insurance company, FEMA, and our leasing agent. Here we were 2 weeks out and our insurance company had not contacted us at all about our belongings claims.
The cars were still damaged. Mine went to the body shop the Monday after the storm. It would be 3 weeks before they could get to it and tell whether or not the frame was cracked making it impossible to repair. I had no choice but to leave it there, it was not safe to drive. It had been two weeks now since I left it with them and they still could not tell me if it was too badly damaged to repair. Bobby was back at work and had to take our one means of transportation to Birmingham each day so I was relying on rides to and from work. Don’t get me wrong it was nice to have an excuse to be around people that loved and supported us but with the large amount of errands I needed to run each day while Bobby was in Birmingham I felt I might start testing the limit of my chauffeurs’ kindness. We didn’t have the money for a rental car we made do with what we could.
Sometime during this week things went south at work for me. I would love to write a detailed account of it all but seeing as how I still need a job I can only say that the events that followed drove me to a nervous breakdown on an elevator at my building. I was mortified; I felt like running away, I began to wonder what the job market was like in Colorado. I thought for sure I would end up unemployed, or even worse sent to the Looney Ben. After several discussion with several of my bosses (yes I have like 5 of them) it was determined I would move to another building. So here I am having to cope with a huge amount of change already and taking on one more huge change for the summer sent my psych splitting in several directions. I know these people had to think by now I was absolutely out of my mind! From this point out I was in a constant state of confusion, I didn’t know when I was moving, how my job would change, why no one was talking to me about each step, was I being punished, was I being helped, what had I done wrong, what did I need to do to prepare, what was going to happen to stuff, what would my new work home look like. Oh god I couldn’t sleep, all I could think about was work, I had my life falling apart around me and all I could think about was doing my job and what was going to happen to me there.
So all this was going on with work, we were living at a friend’s house on an air mattress. We were down to one car but we were positive we would be able to sign a lease within a few days for a new rental house. We were weary of the house, it wasn’t anything like our old house, it was more expensive, and it was in a completely different location. So for the love of god why did we go to the bank! I look back on some of these decisions and think, am I glutton for punishment, am I trying to have myself committed? We went to the bank, we thought what the hell, here we are going to have to pay a larger rental payment for a smaller house and we had already been treated as second class citizens because we were renters what is the harm in just talking with someone. So there we were sitting at the bank talking with a loan officer about applying for a mortgage with the FHA program for disaster victims. After the countless times we had tried before I assumed it would be like any other time, we would be told no. My student loans were too high, the credit scores were not high enough to compensate, etc. etc. etc. I braced myself for the bad news, thinking why am I putting myself through this. The bad news didn’t come; the loan officer seemed hopeful, confident that we could get a loan. I was in a state of euphoria; I didn’t know what to think. Here we were ready to sign a lease, we knew we would be in Tuscaloosa at least 3 to 4 more years and we just threw another wrench in the pile. We gave the loan officer all our information and said we would compile the necessary paperwork as soon as possible. We had to make the biggest decision of our marriage within a matter of hours. Should we go ahead with trying for home loan and lose what we felt was probably the only opportunity we had to find suitable housing or should we just sign the lease and put this one time chance out of our minds. Stay tuned for the next episode of drama in south…..3 weeks after the storm.
PS. I am sure so many of you were very worried about our local Starbucks like I was. I am happy to inform you that after about 6 weeks of no store they are finally back open. They were very diligent in serving their customers from a trailer and I thank them profusely for doing so.
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