In September, my boyfriend and I broke up.
Then I lost my full time job.
And in November, my apartment flooded and I had to move out.
It’s been a hell of a ride, to say the least, but hot damn! if
it hasn’t been the best fall of my life! Let me tell you why.
I had met this guy in June, and by July was convinced that
we were going to get married and live happily ever after in a different country
for the rest of our lives. But August was an . . . interesting month for us, to say the
least, and since he’d actually prefer not to appear in my blog at all, I’ll just
leave it at that. I still went to visit him in September to see if we’d be able
to continue things long-distance, but the day before I flew back to Raleigh, we
figured out that our life paths were actually not going in the same direction
at all. So we broke it off for good. Two weeks after that, I met a fellow ESL
teacher, tip-toed into a cautious relationship, discovered that we compliment
each other perfectly, and then cannonballed headfirst with no regrets. (More on
that later.)
Back to my Mexico trip. The day after returning, I walked
into work (having just received a fairly positive yearly evaluation six days
before) to the news that they didn’t want me to work there anymore. So now I
don’t. Before two days had passed, however, I picked up enough hours at my
other job to make it through the end of the year, so I am not going hungry.
Technically the investigation is still underway, but it
seems as though someone left a cigarette burning on the balcony on November 10,
and it caught the entire third floor on fire. When the firefighters came to put
it out, they dumped enough water on the building to cascade into the second and
first floors as well, making the whole building uninhabitable for the next six
or eight months, I think.
I was at home when the fire started at 2:30 p.m. that
Monday, and watched with my next-door neighbor as the top floor went up in
flames. After being interviewed by a million different TV stations and
newspapers (y’all knew that already, right?), all of us who had lost our homes
gathered in the community center at the apartment complex to discuss our next
steps.
I had held it pretty much together for those first four
hours, surviving on adrenaline and publicity, but when the Red Cross and
Disaster Relief folk started talking in plain terms about staying in hotels,
emergency funds, and all the rest, the tears started coming. Luckily, Brian was
at my side the whole time, providing comfort and strength just when I needed it
most. (He’s a good guy to have around in an emergency, too; he stays calm and
doesn’t freak out when the rest of the world is. This is also the guy who, only
knowing my name and that my insurance company was “some subset of Geico?”
managed to file a claim on my behalf an hour after the fire started—and he’s
not even on my policy.)
That first night, I stayed at Brian’s (who’s staying in a
house with his friends), trying to
put on a brave face for the strangers I was suddenly living with. But after
everyone else had gone to bed, I wrapped up in a blanket on the couch and Brian
let me sob on his shoulder inconsolably for an hour. I finally passed out
around 12:30 but was up at 3:30 a.m., unable to sleep or quit thinking of all
the things I had probably lost.
Imagine my surprise when I opened my apartment door at 8:30
a.m. to a perfectly whole abode. Whole as in not in pieces. The upstairs
apartments were mostly ash, fallen insulation, and smoke; the roof had
collapsed to let the sunlight stream in. The plaster ceiling in my place was
hanging on precariously in some parts, but was still intact. Everything looked
the same as usual, except that it was all sopping wet. The carpet squished, streams
of water cascaded from the dining room chandelier onto the table, the bed was a
sodden mess of smoky blankets – but everything was whole.
Despite its wholeness, I still lost a lot. All the furniture
was ruined; so was anything that plugged in.
More than half of my books were
gone, and all of my important papers (graduation certificates, insurance
policies, credit card statements) were all dripping wet (shoulda got me a
filing cabinet years ago!). But there was a lot to save: my cookbooks were all
fine, my work computer was OK, most of my photographs survived, 99% of my
clothes just needed a good washing with vinegar, and the cedar chest that dad
had built after chopping down a cedar tree made it through relatively
unscathed.
However, after that first initial glee that I hadn’t lost
everything, I was suddenly struck with the reality of the situation: I had 48
hours to remove everything salvageable from my apartment before the disaster
relief people closed the building up for good. I was moving, the quickest I had
ever had to move in my life. I had to make instant decisions about what was
good and what was lost, what to keep and what to throw away, all the while
working in a cold, dark, wet apartment without electricity or running water. Plus,
everything was damp or actually wet to the touch: twice I had puddles of
standing water fall on me while I was removing plastic boxes from the closet. That
first day, my dad, Brian, another friend and I spent eight hours loading up everything
that could be salvaged and hauling it over to Knightdale. The second day, only
Brian and I came back to itemize everything that was lost.
I only broke down once during that whole two-day process: in
a sudden flash of understanding I realized that I was packing up my apartment for
good and would never, never return there. I was reminded of leaving my
apartment in Takasaki back in August 2012 and how I cried in every room as I
was saying goodbye. But at least then I knew
I was leaving. I had known for months that I was going back to the U.S. so
it was hardly a surprise. This here, though, throwing everything haphazardly
into plastic bins, hardly bothering to make sure it was secure before carting
them off, felt more like Depression-era rapid relocation. It hurt to even think
about the situation, it was so unexpected and tragic.
Fast forward a few days. We got everything packed up and
moved. Three quarters of my belongings are in Brian’s friend’s garage; the
other quarter is at another friend’s apartment. The apartment complex I was
living at has offered me a two-bedroom, 2 ½ bathroom apartment on the third
floor of another building for the same price that I had been paying for my one
bedroom (only for six months, but what a deal!) that I have gratefully
accepted. And the family Brian has been living with has been gracious enough to
allow me to stay with them until my new apartment is available on December 10. What’s
even better, I won’t be moving in alone: Brian is coming with me so we can
start up a place of our own.
It has been a long, hard ride, these past few months. Losing
a relationship, a job, and a place to live are all catastrophic in their own
way. What’s more, they haven’t been events that just affected me, but other
people as well: two other employees besides me were fired around the same time,
and 11 other apartments were ruined besides mine (not that you’d know it from
reading the news, ha).
But I feel that the outcomes of these life situations have been
so positive that they make it all worthwhile. I have received so much support
from my family, friends, church, and coworkers—even from people I don’t even know.
I feel blessed to be taken care of so well. I’ve also made a lot of new friends
out of all this disaster.
Each life event that has happened recently has been a
catalyst for some major life changes that needed – and perhaps were going – to
happen, now just a little sooner than I had expected them to. Suddenly all of
those platitudes – when God closes a
door, He opens a window; everything happens for a reason; every cloud has a
silver lining . . . seem to be coming true. And life is becoming very, very good.
So.
In September, my boyfriend and I broke up.
Then I lost my full time job.
And in November, my apartment flooded and I had to move out.
But nothing, nothing, has brought me greater joy.
But nothing, nothing, has brought me greater joy.
