What do I know about earthquakes? Growing up in Chicago, I had zero clue. I think the first exposure to earthquakes was during the A’s-Giants World Series; that was pretty wild. Seeing the part of the Golden Gate bridge collapse… the stadium shaking. Not until I moved to LA, did I finally experience one firsthand. I was at work in downtown LA, when all of a sudden, everything started moving around; yes, this was my first earthquake. It was scary as hell; when was it going to stop? How much worse would it get? The light fixture above my head swung down; my computer monitor back in my office was on the floor. I don’t recall that magnitude but it felt like a big one. When it finally stopped, I looked around at everybody, making sure they were OK; they all were. They were lifelong California residents; this was nothing to them. They were already getting back to work. Meanwhile, this midwestern boy was pale as a ghost, looking for a trash can to throw up in. I was ready to call it a day, and get the hell home… haha. I did experience one other quake while out there; it was just before we moved back to Chicago. We had everything stacked in our apartment ready to go, and then it hit… the stacks of bins and boxes just swayed back and forth. This one didn’t feel nearly as bad as that first one… OK, that’s another sign we need to go… We did, and since then, no earthquakes for me…
My Mom passing feels like one though, to my insides. I feel shaken to the core. I feel all over the place with my emotions. I feel like it will take a while to get everything inside of me back in order. I guess these “aftershocks” are part of the process? Yeah, Saturday the 13th was the one week anniversary of her passing; it was not a good day for me. With it still being so fresh, I replayed that entire morning/day in my head; it’s still hard to believe. Still, we keep moving; there is no other option. Well, there IS another option. I can lock myself in my room, throw some covers over my head, and come out in a few days; this is what I have felt like doing. Can’t do that though. No. I would like to stop all the Mother’s Day emails from hitting my inbox though…
Although we will be starting back up in “safe mode”, we will start back up; we will start to proceed back down this path we call life. We will work through this earthquake and put the pieces back together. Yes, once we gather up all those pieces, there will be one missing; I know that. I hate getting a puzzle that has a piece missing, but in this case, it’ll have to be good enough. I’ll have to lean on all the other pieces to bridge the gap; I’m thankful to have those other pieces. One of my other pieces is this here thing I do… which is helping me in ways I never thought it would. Still need to catch up though… that seems to be a common theme right now…
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