Yesterday I woke up and checked my Twitter stream before all of the sleep had been wiped from my eyes- that’s pretty normal for me most days.
What hit my eyes next however,wasn’t.
My stream was virtually full of news about the tsunami that had hit Japan. It wasn’t quite clicking in my brain though.
I saw links to find relatives in Japan or links to donate money, retweets of news tweets but it wouldn’t come together to form a big picture.
And then I went on tumblr and one of the people I follow on there is actually from Hawaii and her blogs were updates on when the tsunami was set to hit there. That shocked me.
What my brain now understood was that not only had Japan been hit by a natural devastation, Hawaii was next to hit by one too.
I got out of bed and made my way to the living room where my husband was already watching live reports of the damage. We watched in silence for most of the morning. I stopped only when the girls woke up to get them dressed and make them breakfast. And then I let them watch cartoons in mommy and daddy’s room while I continued to watch the news on different channels with my husband. And I felt kinda numb. I mean I was shocked and sad and scared, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. This storm was massive and it was forecast to hit Hawaii and maybe even cause damage to California, it felt unreal.
And I’m glad it ran out of steam before causing more damage but it hurt a lot of people in Japan and I felt for them, I really did.
And then other things seemed to go more into focus for me.
Because I realized that I complain about stupid things way too often, things that don’t matter for the most part. I am a lucky person. I have a lot of great people, a great family that I know and love. And all of these things that I value, everything I hold dear could disappear in a second.
And when I realized that I walked away from the television and pulled my girls out of my room and held them like some crazy woman until my oldest squirmed out again. And I ignored that breakfast dishes were waiting on me or that a load of laundry beckoned from my doorway. I spent a whole lot of yesterday just playing with my kids. I gave my husband way too many hugs. I realized that I should get in touch with my family of sisters and my brother and my parents, nieces, nephews and second nieces and nephews more often.
I took a minute to be thankful and it made things a little better. And Japan still saddened me, it still makes me sad now. But me being sad and curled up into a fetal position over it isn’t going to help anything. Me worrying that things like this will continue to happen more and more often isn’t going to help anyone either. All I can think to do right now is pray for Japan and to give to those that can help in situations like this. The best that I can think to do with my time is fully enjoy those that I love just in case.
And yes the house has to be cleaned sometime but I won’t obsess when it’s a little messy and people stop by, and yes- writing makes me happy and I’ll do that when I can, but my number one priority is my family. All of the other stuff has to come second.
*If you’d like to donate text the word REDCROSS to 90999, and your $10 donation will show up on your phone bill. It’s easy and it only takes a minute and it’s something that most of us can afford to do. *
March 18, 2011 at 4:52 am -
You know what else scares me? All I heard on the radio today about the nuclear reactor close to meltdown, and the evaporating water, and no power to pump the necessary water back in .
Scarey stuff.
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March 18, 2011 at 6:02 am -
It just seems worse and worse, and I feel a little guilty because I’m aalmost trying to not focus on it. But I just can’t think too long on it, it would make me go crazy. I owe it everyone around me to live as fully as I can do because things like this can happen. But I don’t forget. I’ve not forgotten 9/11 or Haiti or countless other horrible events and I won’t forget this.