The Five Stages of Refugee Status

The Kubler-Ross model for grieving seems to apply to being a refugee at the hands of Hurricane Sandy as well. Denial: The following tweet might have been a little bit cavalier of me:

Anger: As the storm raged outside and the power plant in our neighborhood blew up and knocked out all the entirety of lower Manhattan, the denial that we would be effected quickly switched to anger that our preparations for a day or two wouldn't be near enough to last the early reports that it would be at least 3-4 days before we had power and water, if not a full week.

Bargaining: As the reality of our situation set in, Annie and I just had to get out and walk it off. We headed north for more than a mile before we say the first flicker of power or a working stop light. I also figured that this was the best excuse ever to satisfy my recent urge for some unlimited salad and breadsticks at the Times Square Olive Garden. That bargaining worked but when we arrived we found out that they, like apparently every other organization not run by an immigrant Mom and Pop were closed.

Depression: The most common phrase yesterday was "Wish I would have known...." and then the sincere feeling of ignorance, naivety, and actual depression about my complete lack of preparation. It was a lot of internal reassuring that there is no way I could have known having never actually lived through a hurricane or dealing with days upon days of power and water outages. While I would say that I've pushed through this one, it is still lingering when I look at my suitcase and realize that its contents are the only things I'll have access to of my own for days to come.

Acceptance: The closest thing to a turning point in the depression stage was when we just decided that we had to leave our apartment and make plans towards that end. We were overwhelmed by all of the friends around the city that weren't hit as hard as we were that offered us a place to stay. While you never want to need help, especially as New Yorkers, it was pretty amazing to see how many folks reached out.

There are a ton of thoughts swirling in my head right now about what I would do differently and how this storm has a ton of parallels to real life, but I'll leave those for another day. But, in a effort to establish a little bit of order to this chaos that is my reality for the foreseeable future, I did the only thing I knew for a fact would help: I made breakfast tacos. 

Adventure, Foodie, Humble Thoughts, My NYandy ellwood