Waiting for the other shoe

July 30, 2006 at 3:12 am | Posted in Hurricane Katrina, personal favorites | Leave a comment

Am I the only one feeling it? The vague uneasiness, the edginess? The sense that something should be wrong, and yet all appears well?

It’s hurricane season, and there haven’t been any hurricanes.

I’ve lived on the Gulf Coast most of my life, and I’m sure there have been hurricane seasons before this where there were no hurricanes till August, or even late September. And I hardly even noticed. So why does it make me uneasy this year that two months have gone by without even the threat of one in the Gulf?

Yes, it’s anticlimactic, after all the pre-season anxiety and hand-wringing. But that’s not entirely it. It’s like, I have a fear now that I want to face, and I can’t. I’m ready, but it’s nowhere to be found. And I feel like if I relax about it, and let down my guard, I’ll be caught unprepared when it finally does happen. And it’s just a matter of time.

Obviously I have a mild case of PTSD. And given that I got off easy compared to most people in this catastrophe, I can only imagine the level of anxiety other people are feeling right now.

It was supposed to be another killer hurricane season. So where are the hurricanes? We should be on the E’s or F’s by now, and instead we’re still on the letter B. We’re all psyched up for battle, but there’s nothing to fight.

Of course, I’m not entirely sure my house can withstand another hurricane, and I seriously doubt the city could at this point. But we do need to start facing the fear at least in small ways before it becomes a bigger monster in our imagination than it is in real life. So how about a nice tropical storm for starters? People will think I’m crazy for saying so, but we could use one right about now. We need to have one pass nearby and do us no serious harm. Start small and make sure the levees will hold for that. Then maybe a real hurricane.

And I don’t really want to experience the destruction and horrific aftermath of Katrina ever again. But I don’t think we’ll ever fully recover until we can face the fear of it and know that we’ve conquered the problems that made it more than just wind and water.