Before the Fire/After the Fire

It has been nearly two weeks since the fire at 1410 Central consumed nearly all of my worldly possessions. It didn’t take long for me to recognize that I was using these linguistic qualifiers on many of my sentences. It’s as if my mind is trying to mentally orient itself around that one stable fact while everything else swirls around. And while everything else in nearly every aspect of my life is swirling, I have the fire to ground me in space and time.

Before the fire, I didn’t have much trouble eating or sleeping. Before the fire, I was trying to lose ten pounds. Before the fire, I didn’t realize how many friends I really had (some of whom I had never even really met yet). Before the fire, I hadn’t cried in a very long time. After the fire, I feel like I have some sort of super-ADD. After the fire, it feels like I get things accomplished at about a one-third pace (or slower). After the fire, the times that I have been able to temporarily put worrisome thoughts out of my mind are brief and fleeting. After the fire, I’m thankful to know that people still think of me as the giggly one.

I know that this event is changing my life. I know that it is probably shaping my future in strange ways that I could never predict at this point. I’m trying to embrace that change with as much grace as I can. It’s very slow-going.