Ten Years On
I was doing so well with keeping up with DW, and then suddenly it's the end of August. Ah, well.
But I always do feel like I want to check in around this time of year, and say I'm okay. I guess I don't, always. Looking back at the archives, I haven't posted on or around the Katrina anniversary in three years. I can't believe it's 2015. I don't know who all is still even reading this, but ten years ago my fandom friends (you guys) were a lifeline for me, and that's always been important.
I am okay. I read almost none of the 10-year anniversary coverage, and I feel a little disconnected from it. I've been gone so long I don't know the day-to-day well enough to know what's real and what's sensationalism. I'm not a local, anymore, not really, and even though there are still days I miss it so much I can't breathe, it also becomes clearer and clearer that I'm not going back, at least not any time soon. Admitting that feels like abdication of responsibility and a little bit of my right to claim New Orleans as home the way I do, though I do still feel that way about it, the city of my heart. I was only there six years, but it felt more like home in the first month than DC ever has. I love my life here because I love my people here, but I feel no affinity for the city. I've never felt like I belong in this place. In NOLA it was often the other way around. If I'm not going to live there (and right now I'm still not) I do need to go back more often and see for myself and non-Mardi Gras/holiday time how things are.
I was talking to an old friend/lover from NOLA the night of the anniversary about how weird it is to think that it's been ten years since the storm. It feels both like it can't possibly have been that long, and also like everything has happened since then. I was such a mess then. I wasn't even out yet, then. Who was that girl? When I think about it in terms of where I was in my life it feels like so much longer. And I think I would be very different if it hadn't happened. I would probably be in a very different place. We all have those moments all the time, probably, one thing happens on one day and your future falls like dominoes, but it was so visible a rupture, and so out of my (everyone's) control, and changed everything. It's weird to think about. I like my life a lot now. That's not something I take comfort in, really, because it doesn't mitigate anything that happened but I guess I do take some comfort in resilience - my own, my friends', the city's. Not everything happens for a reason, and it doesn't mean anything except what we make it mean. I'm comfortable with that.
This weekend I went to the beach with six friends from grad school, who are some of my best friends in the world. I feel like I've known them all forever, and I didn't know any of them ten years ago. It was a good weekend. Saturday I thought about the storm a lot, and had a couple of really surreal moments, and processed, at least a little bit, with many of my NOLA friends. I also lay in the sun, and had the best scallops I have ever had IN MY ENTIRE LIFE, and got tipsy with good friends, and ate ice cream on the beach at midnight. I had a really good day. I have good people. Here, there, on the Internet, in my life. :) I'm lucky.
Ten years. I don't even know.
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But I always do feel like I want to check in around this time of year, and say I'm okay. I guess I don't, always. Looking back at the archives, I haven't posted on or around the Katrina anniversary in three years. I can't believe it's 2015. I don't know who all is still even reading this, but ten years ago my fandom friends (you guys) were a lifeline for me, and that's always been important.
I am okay. I read almost none of the 10-year anniversary coverage, and I feel a little disconnected from it. I've been gone so long I don't know the day-to-day well enough to know what's real and what's sensationalism. I'm not a local, anymore, not really, and even though there are still days I miss it so much I can't breathe, it also becomes clearer and clearer that I'm not going back, at least not any time soon. Admitting that feels like abdication of responsibility and a little bit of my right to claim New Orleans as home the way I do, though I do still feel that way about it, the city of my heart. I was only there six years, but it felt more like home in the first month than DC ever has. I love my life here because I love my people here, but I feel no affinity for the city. I've never felt like I belong in this place. In NOLA it was often the other way around. If I'm not going to live there (and right now I'm still not) I do need to go back more often and see for myself and non-Mardi Gras/holiday time how things are.
I was talking to an old friend/lover from NOLA the night of the anniversary about how weird it is to think that it's been ten years since the storm. It feels both like it can't possibly have been that long, and also like everything has happened since then. I was such a mess then. I wasn't even out yet, then. Who was that girl? When I think about it in terms of where I was in my life it feels like so much longer. And I think I would be very different if it hadn't happened. I would probably be in a very different place. We all have those moments all the time, probably, one thing happens on one day and your future falls like dominoes, but it was so visible a rupture, and so out of my (everyone's) control, and changed everything. It's weird to think about. I like my life a lot now. That's not something I take comfort in, really, because it doesn't mitigate anything that happened but I guess I do take some comfort in resilience - my own, my friends', the city's. Not everything happens for a reason, and it doesn't mean anything except what we make it mean. I'm comfortable with that.
This weekend I went to the beach with six friends from grad school, who are some of my best friends in the world. I feel like I've known them all forever, and I didn't know any of them ten years ago. It was a good weekend. Saturday I thought about the storm a lot, and had a couple of really surreal moments, and processed, at least a little bit, with many of my NOLA friends. I also lay in the sun, and had the best scallops I have ever had IN MY ENTIRE LIFE, and got tipsy with good friends, and ate ice cream on the beach at midnight. I had a really good day. I have good people. Here, there, on the Internet, in my life. :) I'm lucky.
Ten years. I don't even know.
comments at Dreamwidth | Comment at Dreamwidth