Random Memories I

This post isn't going to communicate a point, necessarily.

I'd mentioned before that there are lots of things I don't want to forget from this time in my life.
So...I need plan to record them here and there...every now and then...in bits and pieces...and then not re-visit them until I want to.

I've found that if I read my personal account of May 22...I start shaking.

When I talk to the people who were with me...or who were in the middle of it...I get goosebumps and start shaking.

So...I won't read what I write...for a while anyway...but I'll have it for when I want to read it.

I think it's important to have theses things....because while I keep griping and moaning and blabbering on talking about finding "normal" again...I don't want things to go back to the same "normal" as before.

I want to keep (and I want this city to keep) the new perspective that came with the EF-5.
The perspective that things are.....things, and people matter more.
The priority switch that came on May 22......the one that made all of us hold each other a little closer...grab hands in the parking lot, and hug people we don't even know.

So....as time passes on and we become "normal" again....(and by "normal" this time I mean a little more jaded, cynical, impatient and intolerant (which I know that I have been....and I don't want to be again...)) I plan to re-visit these memories and stories.

I hope it will help me re-remember my new/old/newish/ (huh?) priority system.

Or maybe I just need to get these things out of my mind and onto "paper".

Either way...they will be here.

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A short time after the tornado some organization on Main St made t-shirts they were selling for $20.  $15 of the cost goes directly into Rebuild Joplin.   My sister-in-law got the kids, RH and I shirts.  They are grey and say "Restore Joplin".  The kids love them and grab them as soon as they come out of the dryer. Ethan was looking down at himself and (i guess for the 1st time actually) read his shirt.

"What does "restore" mean?"

"It means to rebuild....to try and turn something back into what it was before."

"Oh," he answered....only half-listening to me.

"I think it should say "Ruined" Joplin."

Ugggggh.

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When we were in my basement during the actual storm there was a time when it got lighter briefly and RH said he was going to go take a look.  I told him not to (this is all in my original account earlier in the blog so you KNOW I'm not making it up)...that it didn't "feel" right yet...and then it was dark and yucky and loud again.

At the pool this weekend my friend Kerry asked me if we had been in the middle of the tornado...if the eye had passed over us.

I told her I didn't know......that I wasn't sure how I COULD know that.

She asked me if the wind and noise ever lessened for a few seconds (4-5 is the professional meteorological estimate) and then got bad again.

I thought about it....and out came the goosebumps and full-body shakes again.

That was when Barrett said he might go upstairs.
That was when the green light came under the door again instead of pitch black.

Again....Ugggggh.
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That's all for now....but I will add more blabbering useless potentially annoying memories as they occur.

And if you want the link to the t-shirts, you can find them here.   It's a great site and a great cause.

Thanks for "listening"....but I understand if you don't want these stories.
They're pretty yucky to me, too.