Post-flood routines & changes

Recovering from last month’s flood has meant more than just a loss of properties, a loss of home life, and a loss of normalcy. It has been a daily reckoning with a surprising, new, and tiring routine.

Mrs. K and I have settled in to a post-flood tempo of sleeping in our unfinished house, eating breakfast in our RV tiny-home, going out shopping for the items that have come to the fore on the stuff-to-do-to-fix-the-house list, making decisions re: those items, finding lunch somewhere, staying cool while staying out of the workers’ way, having a late afternoon cocktail, finding dinner, coming back to our fixed-a-little-further home, and settling into evening time, sleep, and doing it all again.

It’s called progress, and it is what’s necessary for us to be going through to accomplish something every day.

The other side of what we do repeatedly is … what we don’t do any more.

We are not going out to see theatre productions. With all that is going on, managing my A Seat on the Aisle blog and column was a distraction. I chose to deal with it by suspending that activity for a while. Seeing shows is something Mrs. K and I really enjoy and we’ll hope to get back to it as soon as we can, but for now – we’ll miss a few.

Likewise, the A Seat at the Table column – covering our usual Wednesday adventure seeking good Happy Hours – will also have to wait. Again, we enjoyed the heck out of discovering different places to HH, but we have not even given this one much thought lately.

Our attention to world, national, and political events has waned to almost nothing. Turns out, this is probably a good thing. Troubling ourselves about what is happening out there is an unnecessary energy-thief and we need all those energies for what fate has placed before us with this flood recovery. I really don’t miss the insanity. There’s nothing we can do about any of it anyway. It’ll continue without us watching.

My attention to sports has also been affected. I caught most of the Colts’ loss last Sunday, but probably won’t manage to stay awake for their upcoming Sunday night game. My favorite college teams, IU and Notre Dame, also are subject to what time they are being broadcast. Late games that I used to stay up for are just too difficult to stay up for now. But really, I just don’t care as much.

We are also missing special events, particularly our granddaughter’s wedding in Las Vegas. For months we planned to go out there for the celebration, but all the money it would cost is better used elsewhere and the energy to make the trip is lacking anyway. Still, it’s a heartbreaking change in plans.

Also, no video game playing, online comic reading, walks (too tired), outings, or visits. It’s all been changed – the energies, the caring, the passions.

Dealing with the life-altering effects of this event have sapped us of much of our interests, strengths, and patience. Doing the stuff that once easily brought us happiness is just too hard. We’ll be so glad to get back to our more regular routines.

I’m certain we will – given time.