It has been a full two months since Hurricane Harvey and its torrential rains came into my world, and seemingly washed it away. Luckily, I have been able to maintain my sanity. School, work, and my creative opportunities have helped me stay in touch with reality, and kept me from fully slipping into melancholic despair.
The campus of Lamar University continues to feel like a second home. My almost daily ventures out to campus have allowed me to forget about storm damages or insurance, and instead given me a shelter from the more draining aspects of my current situation. Classes this week continued to feel like more of the same. It’s almost welcoming to know before long I will have probably forgotten what it felt like to be aching to just get back into a classroom so that I wouldn’t have to think about what Hurricane Harvey had done.
However, there was one unfortunate aspect of this past week, which was the sheer amount of things that fell upon my shoulders to complete over the course of the week. Now, I never expect to be overwhelmed by the amount of projects I take on at any given time, and, honestly, I still defend being involved in a large number of those projects. The issue is that on last Friday, almost every project needed me to be present in some aspect. Being pushed to the brink of insanity like that is never a fun thing, but it is definitely a valuable learning tool to avoid future situations that may bring me to the edge of my sanity.
Things are continuing to look up on the homefront. Drywall is still far from being fully completed, but now the entire house has at least the first layer installed. I never thought I would be so filled with joy just by walking through my home and being able to gaze at complete walls. Unfortunately, it looks like it may be another two weeks until we can move on from drywall and on to painting. While I wish the process could be expedited, I’m grateful the home repairs are moving at a seemingly steady pace.
The home repairs are also beginning to seemingly coincide with the school semester. This upcoming school week will be midterms in most of my classes. It will also be roughly the mid-way point for the repairs to my damaged home. This strange coincidence is hopefully going to lead to a rather pleasant early December with a completely repaired home, but only time will tell.
As the days and nights continue to drag on there are times when I begin to wonder if this has all been a dream that will be long forgotten whenever my battered mind wakes from its painful slumber. The wreckage of my home and, consequently, my life, unfortunately remind me this dream is my agonizing reality.
Dispatch from Lamar will be a weekly feature in The Hawk.