Friday, June 3, 2011

Still Refugees

Days turned into a whole week as we searched for housing and spent god awful amount of time on hold with the insurance company, FEMA, our leasing agent, etc.  Our insurance wanted to know what was being done with the house, our leasing agent had to know what their insurance was going to say.  It went round and round in circles like this for days.
At this point much of Tuscaloosa was trying to get back to normal and the University was in full swing.  Bobby and I returned to work the following week to find mostly warm receptions and support.  We felt terrible for not being at work and even worse when people wanted us to track our time once we returned.  So many people we work with or encounter on a daily basis were not affected by the storm, many didn’t even know what had happened to Tuscaloosa. I understand we had to push forward and keep going but I wasn’t ready, I wasn’t prepared to leave all those memories behind just yet.  I felt I was in a twilight zone, I was told my personal problems should not get in the way of work, I was told that we must move forward and not let this hinder progress, I felt I was the only sane person there who understood the devastation that lay just blocks away from my place of employment. Driving through it every day not being able to find my way to the work on the roads I normally took because the landmarks were gone and I was lost was constant and real for me, I couldn’t comprehend how others could dismiss the tragedy.  I was angry, appalled, and saddened by the lack of sympathy that so many showed toward this tragedy.  Don’t get me wrong, the University as a whole has been amazing and the level of support from so many departments have been outstanding and encouraging.  Isn’t that why we are here?  We are the community right?  I had hoped so, that’s why I work here; I just wish everyone felt like that.
Trying to maintain control over my job responsibilities and my independence was very hard that first week returning to work.  I wanted to share everything with everyone but I also had this feeling of being exposed and dependent.  I didn’t realize how private a person I really was or how much I value my independence until it was all taken away from me.  I wanted so badly to share everything with everyone when they seemed so concerned about me yet I also desperately wanted my privacy.  So much conflict internally and externally my psych was crumbling.  I cried every day for hours, sometimes because of nothing at all, sometimes because of a thought, and then sometimes by something someone said. Everything was moving to slow and to fast at the same time nothing was getting fixed but nothing was getting worse.  Again being in the twilight zone was all I kept thinking about, this wasn’t real it was all a dream.
The week passed and we had not found a storage unit nor a home to rent.  We had been looking and had leads on rental houses but nothing was working out.  So many of the properties were destroyed and others not available until August.  We found one house that was perfect, it was huge, we could have Bobby’s siblings live with us for another year and we all could save money.  I liked the idea of not being alone, I had come to be very dependent on people being around every hour of the day.  We were going to sign a lease and be able to move in 2 weeks later.  Hurray things were looking up!  I called back on Monday to tell the agent we were headed down to bring the deposit.  The agent with no empathy or care told us that sorry someone rented it this morning.  How could this have happened we were bringing the deposit down on Monday we told him we would, how could he just rent it out from under us.  What had the world come to!  He said an insurance company called that morning and put a full deposit and a few months rent down on the house, didn’t even want to see it.  I was so angry, heartbroken.  We thought we had a plan, an ending to this story, but no we were still homeless, still refugees in a civilized nation.

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