Fear

Today for #blogtember, the topic is being afraid.

There are different types of afraid, I have found.

There is the type of afraid where you are just REALLY worried, like when your little one has surgery.

There is the type of afraid where you are literally scared for your life.

I decided to talk about the latter.

In September of 2008, Houston was warned of a Hurricane approaching. The first instinct was to not take it very seriously as we had just had a scare with Hurricane Rita the year before, which resulted in mass hysteria trying to leave the city and people stranded on the highways - and then the storm moved and missed us.

Certain areas of the city this time were told to leave - especially all of Galveston Island. Since we were much more inland, near downtown actually, and our house had never flooded, we were in an area told to "hunker down."

So we did.

At 3am on September 13th, we awoke to very very high winds and some rain. At this time, we had old windows in our home and a large Oak Tree that dropped branches when the wind changed direction. After a few moments of deliberation, we moved into the hallway where we could shut all the doors and be safe from glass should a window break. We had a wind up radio so we could here what was going on. We lost power around 4am.

At some point, I am guessing as the eye got closer to our area, I started feeling sick. I looked at Lee and I said "What are we doing here? Why did we stay?" I started thinking about our life and our pets and our families and why we risked all these things to stay in our house. I was truly afraid, as our windows were bending and vibrating, that we had made a fatal mistake.

In the end, we didn't. Our house was fine, most everyone we knew was fine. We only had one couple had damage to their house but it wasn't life threatening.

I remember being in shock. Just sitting and staring. Not eating. I lost about 10 pounds and never wanting to see a grill again for a long time.

I know now, with Logan, our decisions will be worlds different should we face this again.

I also know, I am not equipped for "sheltering in place."