Katrina to Isaac

I originally wrote this August 28th, 2008 an posted to [My Myspace Blog], but seeing as "Isaac" has decided to torment us, and on the anniversary no less, I felt digging it up and reposting it (after a tad of re-editing) might be appropriate.

It's been 3 years tomorrow... Sitting with knuckles white and teeth clinched in the darkness, unknown.
No electricity, no news, no way of knowing the extent to which her might would go.
Not a clue that she would devastate the way she did.
It all seems like yesterday; the fright of that Sunday night, that bled into Monday morning.
Katrina had landed, wielding her mighty hammer and the stroke fell across our entire world, erasing it and wiping clean everything we ever knew.
Home, gone, without a trace... Our lives forever changed.
  I just want to say that I know a lot of us are still suffering from mental disorders, mainly Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), general and intense bouts of lasting anxiety, nervousness, sadness, depression etc. Some of us are even feeling suicidal still.
  I know that tomorrow is an open wound for many and will eventually be replaced by a horrendous scar, but for now, it's still quite the gaping gash that mere words can't even begin to express the degree of sadness to which many of us still feel even today.
It's the kind of sadness that grips us deep into the very tissue of our heart muscle, squeezing, and causing it to skip a beat.
It's the kind of sadness that infects our brains and causes malfunction, like a cancer, it eats at our ability to smile, to get out of bed, to face life ... And to function at all.
  We still get lost in memory as we try to remember what life "used" to be, what things "used" to look like, where what "was" and how things "were" etc. And YES, that alone can disable us for minutes, hours, days, weeks or even years... As we wallow in the "past-tense" of our entire worlds.
  I cannot expect anyone unaffected by Katrina to understand as my words can't make you know what we feel and live with everyday. But know this, tomorrow is a sad fucking day for A LOT of people. And to those of you who do know what I'm saying , know this: I cry with you, for this is how "I" feel every-fucking-day, so nobody is alone tomorrow.. At the very least, I'm with you.
  We survived Katrina, in the medical sense that we are alive .. But for now and forever, we must keep learning how to deal with it and learn to "live" again without the fear crippling us.

  Now with Isaac bearing down on us, many of those feelings of fear and hopelessness are returning to the forefronts of our minds. Seven year old scars ripping wide open as we ask: Why? or Again? Of course there are no answers to be had, all we can do is hope for the best. Many people are silently dying on the inside, paralyzed with fear and teetering on the brink of nervous breakdown (or worse!)... Try and keep that in mind as dealing with people may become strenuous these next couple of days.
  Maybe this "seven year itch"  will be easily scratched and turn out to be a "lucky 7"!

-Sean