I don't really have a lot of sentiment about today's anniversary. I'm not much on reflection but my conscious feels obliged to, so I'll just tell you where m'at.
I am still paying a mortgage on a house I can't live in, I can't tear down, I can't sell, and I can't fix. I am suing my insurance company. I can't get Road Home money to fix my house because I had insurance, but the insurance company has screwed me, so I am essentially penalized for having had insurance. I'm still in the same hole I've been in for the whole year.
My 5 year old son still asks about New Orleans. He still misses it and still considers it his home. Sometimes he cries when he thinks about his friends, namely Thomas, his best friend. He wonders about his house and his room a lot, too.
I have been away from him, my wife and my daughter (she's about to turn two) a lot over the past year. That's my biggest regret and hardship since Katrina did her thing. It's been tough...and still is, but I'm trying to see the bigger picture and tell myself this is temporary and it will end. I hope that's true, and I hope it's sooner than later.
I've traveled a lot this year. I'm in L.A. as I write this. The traveling has been interesting, but at a cost. It's a tough traveling so much knowing that you don't really have a "home" to come back to. Sometimes I feel like a ghost just wandering around. I'll catch myself standing in an airport or at a coffee shop in some strange town staring off into space and I just forget where I am or even who I am...kind of like when you get piss drunk and wake up someplace and don't know how you got there, but with no hangover.
I have a lot of bouts of compulsion....and guilt. I feel guilty all the time, mostly about not having a home for my family.
That's about it.
happy anniversary fellow New Orleanians.
3 comments:
I feel you, baby. Agapei.
My family lost our house by the flooding caused by Hurricane Ivan. That was almost two years ago. We lost not only our home but every single thing we owned. Finally I feel as if we've gotten ourselves on to surer footing, after these two years. We moved away from the creek that sent eight feet of water into our house and live in a quiet little town. Still, sometimes at night, I wake and worry about my kids. Are they ok? Have I failed them in some way? All I know for sure is that when you have only the clothes you are wearing and what money you've got in the bank, and you have to replace everything, from a pencil to a house, you get a rare glimpse into what it means to be deconstructed.
My family lost our house by the flooding caused by Hurricane Ivan. That was almost two years ago. We lost not only our home but every single thing we owned. Finally I feel as if we've gotten ourselves on to surer footing, after these two years. We moved away from the creek that sent eight feet of water into our house and live in a quiet little town. Still, sometimes at night, I wake and worry about my kids. Are they ok? Have I failed them in some way? All I know for sure is that when you have only the clothes you are wearing and what money you've got in the bank, and you have to replace everything, from a pencil to a house, you get a rare glimpse into what it means to be deconstructed.
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