Please don't forget us, the little people...

At last, the quest has been finished. My house is now complete. Sort of. Anyway, at 9 this Saturday morning, my phone line was reinstalled at my house. One month after Wilma.
huzzah!

So now what? The water's back, the power's on, and the phone is now in working order. I just can't seem to get my life back in the pre-Wilma stages. When I go to make a phone call, still grab for my cell phone, not the one sitting next to me on my desk.

More often than not, I still walk around the house without any lights on. I forget that I have power, and don't need to stub my toes all the time.

Don't even get me started about water rationing.
I'm wondering, is it just me? Am I the only one still trying to get out of the Hurricane aftermath?

Oh, please don't get me wrong. In the scale of "bad things that can happen to you and your home", this only rates a 4 or a 5 on a ten point scale. The main structure is intact. I can live here. My basic life "stuffs" (including all the crap in the office closet I REALLY need to get rid of) is still here an ok. On that point I know I am truly blessed by (please insert whatever deity, spirit or whatever entity you wish to use or not use) that I have all my fingers and toes, animals, job and the like.

But please don't forget about us. The "we're not homeless, we just have a lot of work cut out for us" people. I think they're a lot of us out here after Wilma. We're teetering on the brink of normalcy, living our lives with just a twist of angst. The stress in our lives doesn't make the 5 o'clock news, let alone the national broadcasts.

Wilma was a flash in the pan compared to Katrina in the war of words and TV. In this summer of Greek named storms, Wilma will be the asterisk on the hurricane center archives. Except for those of us who live through her, Wilma will not exist in the hive mind of the world. She wasn't an Andrew (been there, done that) or a Katrina, but that doesn't matter to the people that have lived through her. Like Charlie last year, she beat the crud out of a localized area.

So people in other parts of this country say, "why the heck do you live in hurricane alley?"
My response has never been "the weather". Yes, we have great winters, and so does the southwest. I live here, because of one thing: my work. If they had an electron microscope and the lab to use and maintain it in Maine, I would be there in a heartbeat. But they don't. So I'm here in hurricane alley.

People in other sections of the country have to deal with natural disasters as well. The west has earthquakes, the Midwest has tornados, the northeast has blizzards. All can kill. All can destroy.

At least with hurricanes, I can see them coming for days and prep for them. I won't freeze without power.

So I plug on, hoping that one day soon I can feel that "normal" person again.

Maybe next year. That's my New Year's resolution. I'm going to be normal next year.