All that went through my mind was...."Is this going to get worse?" with Sabrina clinging to my arm we waited for the shaking to subside but it didn't. Finally when things began to click I realized we probably shouldn't be standing/surfing on our apartment porch while the earthquake got worse. Andrea came running right behind us, we probably shouldn't be up here guys! That's when my feet became unglued from my current location on the moving deck and began to run for the stairs.
Just experienced my first yappese earthquake plus 30min later a small aftershock. I don't think it has even sunk in yet that I was really in that. You never think you'll ever go through one of those and when some kind of scary event does take place in your life it takes a while for it to really sink in. All of us just stood outside trying to regain our composure after it happened. Lorraine had just woken up to dishes falling in her apartment, some of the other teachers were out by the shop. The prinicpal grabbed up his kids and we were standing outside our apartment. It seemed to be a flurry of talking and amazement. Had that really JUST happened. The only picture that kept going through my head was looking out into our backyard and seeing the cocunut trees swaying back and forth and feeling like my knees were going to give out. Earlier today I was thinking how I wanted to blog about my juniors/sophmore epic volleyball game but my focus all of a sudden shifted to the latest expereience. Rychelle looked it up online and found out that we were the epicenter here in Yap of a 5.8 earthquake with a small aftershock. I decided I wanted to go for a run to get rid of some of the adreniline only to get caught by the middle school for the aftershock. However a fraction of the size still the same feeling of fear gripped me as I wondered where to go and questioning whether this one would grow too. We all like to have control. Control of our lives, control of our surrondings and when all of a sudden control is taken out of your hands completely we realize that this life isn't ours. It can be gone in a second, so what have we done today to make a difference? I asked my health classes last friday "If you were to die tonight, what would you do today?" I had some classic answers of, "go have fun, skydive, do everything i've wanted to do, party, say goodbye to all my family." But one anwer I go really made me think and it came back to my mind after this earthquake fiasco. One of my students said "Nothing, I already try to live everyday to the fullest." So how am I living my life? What if that earthquake had been my last. Would I be ready....? It makes me look around me deeply, at the people in my life, at my situation. I can't say that I've reached any form of comfort or even close to being secure here in Yap. I still wake up with that sick feeling of having to spend the next 8 months here, I still cry myself to sleep somenights and look away at the sight of new Pohnpei pictures on facebook but it gives you another thought. Gives me another thought. Maybe it's just getting through today that matters and looking back saying, at least I tried.....
you already know how much this terrifies me. i would've much rather have heard about your volleyball game. in fact, i STILL want to hear about it.
ReplyDeletebeing able to say "at least I tried" is something that i struggle with. sometimes i want to be able to say that at the end of this year. and sometimes (a lot of the time) i want to say screw it and go home. i'm tired of crying. i'm tired of dreading every single day. i'm tired of hating everything about where i am right now. i'm tired of having to force myself to remember why in the world i'm still here.