The past two weeks were fortunately filled with more recovery along with a few realizations that I hadn’t expected from being displaced. Classes at Lamar University continued to provide relief from Hurricane Harvey. The simple routine the university provided helped to ease my mind, and allowed me to distance myself from the storm.

The habit of forgetting about the storm continued for me during this period. Classes and film projects I had been working on kept my mind occupied. I also hadn’t had the time to make it back out to my house for almost a week. Luckily, I hadn’t been needed much for any of the repairs taking place at my home during that time.

I hadn’t anticipated or really even thought about becoming sick during this time, but that finally occurred last week. It started with a scratchy throat that didn’t go away after a night of sleep, and progressed to a level of illness I can’t cognitively remember
ever having experienced before. Now, being excessively ill is already an awful experience , but being away from home for the entire week of that sickness added another level of misery to the equation.

Being sick had another aspect I hadn’t foreseen occurring: not being able to attend
my classes. College was the only thing that had really been keeping me motivated for the past month, and I could barely get out of bed. It was a truly atrocious situation. It felt as if Hurricane Harvey had come back to make me suffer all over again.

Luckily the illness began to subside after about six days, and I was able to make it back to Lamar University before the week ended. I made it to the television studio to speak with my mentor, and to receive training for new equipment that had been recently installed in the studio. Even though I didn’t have any classes, just being on campus made me feel immensely better.

After I began to recover I also was able to make it out to my house in Fannett. In the time I’d been away, most of the destroyed objects we had removed from the home had finally been taken away. Seeing the dead grass where all of my family’s contents had been was vaguely soothing. The kitchen cabinets had also finally been removed as well as the appliances in the kitchen. The home was almost entirely empty now, and almost all traces of the home pre-Harvey had been taken away.

I’m definitely looking forward to the next few weeks, as permanent repairs should be starting on the home. Drywall will be installed, new cabinets will be built, and new furniture will be purchased to fill the empty home. It shouldn’t be too much longer until my family and I will be able to live in our home again.