Remembering

Last night I stumbled across pictures we took the day after the fire.  I didn’t expect the pictures to affect me the way they did.  I know it was a highly traumatic and emotional experience, but the pictures struck a chord inside me and it was as if I was walking into our burned home for the first time all over again.  It is amazing how vivid our minds remember things because just looking at the photo, I could feel the dirty ask and soot all over my body as we stirred it all up walking around the wreckage.  I could smell the acrid, smothering smell of the smoke that had seeped into everything that we owned and that clung to the wall and sat heavy in the air.  The reality of the moment was relived in just a simple visual reminder and I was surprised to feel tears falling down my face.  I began to recount our lives before the fire and after the fire and to me it seemed like a pretty tragic ending to a life I loved, ushering in a new stage that has already tried me more than I thought possible.  I was remorseful that I would never again have the life I had before the fire. I would never again have those items I lost, I would never again live in the apartment I had made a home, and I would never again have the same marriage I thought I had.  Needless to say, last night the lose stung me deeply.

Don’t worry though; this was not a step backwards where it was a pity party counting the ways I had been wronged.  Instead, it was a change to deal with some of those emotions that had to be stored up for later.  Oddly, I felt better afterwards and I wish I could say I was more hopeful about things to come, but at the moment one day at a time is all I can muster, which is a goal that I have been accomplishing, so I think that’s what I will stick with for the time being. On that note, our family will be participating in a marriage retreat put on by the Army this weekend and although I don’t expect to take a lot of knowledge from it, I hope it will only do us good, so I may not post for a few days.  Love all my readers!