Katrina-versaries and such

Is it odd that I didn't post anything on August 29th? The anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall was monumental for me, but not nearly as monumental as today's anniversary...a year ago today, I fled this city without any idea of if or when I would ever be back. It was the Wednesday after the storm that my family and I finally left, when it looked like we were going to the Convention Center, when I stripped the hotel room of anything I thought I could use to keep us safe, when I lost my car, when I tried to loot the Walgreens for insulin for my mom, when I prayed I wouldn't see anyone I knew as we drove over the Crescent City Connection, when my body went into shock, when I pulled my hair out by the handfulls, when I dreamt about rushing water, when I held my breath until we got to Houston...when the bottom fell out. It was today, one year ago, that my world officially turned upside down...and it was the beginning of the hardest 365 days of my life.

I had no idea that everything I thought, felt, believed, hoped, and was would be called into question. A year later, I am still in flux. There is a limbo game that I can never quite shake, but I suppose that is our plot as homeward-bound Christians.

A year later, and I won't pretend that I am not still mourning, grieving for my personal losses as well as those of my city, my people. It has been a year, but there is still a hole. It has been a year, but there is still pain...and there will be pain for years to come. But it has been a year. 365 days. 525,600 minutes. It has been a year, and now my mourning is accompanied with so many other things, lighter things, hopeful things. I will still cry. I will still hurt. But I will not dwell there longer than necessary. I will move through the pain and push at the darkness still inside me. It has been a year, and I am ready for something more. Blessed be.