A Grounding Moment

So I had a three day weekend this past weekend.
Which was a good thing since I spent Saturday and Sunday dealing with the aftermath of the fire that nearly burned our home. 

But like, the entire time I was pretty calm about the entire thing.
I mean, yah, I probably had quite the frentic look in my eyes if  you talked with me for any amount of time. But all in all, I was handling the situation pretty well.

Which in retrospect....is probably because a) I was with my roomies like the entire time so I knew where they were and what they were up to. and b) because I was at the house I knew the extent of the damage, I could see the results, I knew what hadn't happened. 

So like, I figured I would be fine going into work today. After all, I'd spent the past couple of days doing pretty well. 

And it turns out I was the only one scheduled to work in my department for my entire shift....so it's not like there was anyone who could have covered me had I called out. 

But like.
I woke up this morning feeling pretty peaceful and relaxed and like. "Oh hey! I slept really well!" 

Only for my brain to start...spiraling? Once I got up. 
As I was getting ready for work.
It started doing those "What if" scenarios. Picturing different outcomes of "if things had gone differently" 
Those "WHAT IF WE HADN'T BEEN WHEN WE WERE WHEN THE FIRE STARTED" sort of things.

Which only seemed to get worse at work. 
Because I was at work. Away from my roomies and away from the house.
So I was then picturing scenarios of "what if I had been at work when the fire broke out, would my managers have let me leave to go rush to the scene?" etc. 

And usually talking out the story helps a bit.
Telling people about the fire and such. 

But like...I never really got the chance to tell the whole story.
It was more of a "My house nearly caught fire, here's some pictures." And that was that. 
I couldn't explain how I'd reacted to seeing the flames. How we'd jumped to action, how long we had to wait....

Plus.
Pretty quickly after getting to work, I was hit with this major wave of exhaustion.
Just. I'm tired and I want to sleep.
Even though I'd gotten restful sleep last night.
It wasn't enough.
I just wanted to crash.

So yah....I was....feeling a bit more of the effects of 'wow we survived a fire!' today.

And it was....bad at work because I just...really wanted someone to tell me "You did amazing, here's a hug, I'm so glad you're okay." 

Mostly I was wanting a hug. A reassurance. 

But there's nobody in the store that I'm that close to and such. 

But my mind settled on one person that I desperately wished to see.

It's a customer of mine. A regular who comes into the store to buy stuff for his birds.
And I basically consider him to be family. Like an Uncle. 
Someone I could trust and talk to and just get a hug from really. 

But he doesn't come in consistently.
Sometimes it's every couple of days, sometimes it's been a couple of months. 

But I was like "Please let him come in today. Please. I need a hug. I need to just be able to talk out the story to a willing ear so I could focus the rest of my shift." 

So that was constantly going through my mind. Just the desire to see a familiar face. 

And at one point I had the thought cross my mind "He'll be in around 2." 
But didn't really linger over the thought, as I was trying to help customers and get a bedding change done. 

But at 2 pm.
I came out of the back with my manager to ask him a question about bedding.
And there he was. 

The bird guy. My adoptive Uncle. 

So I hurriedly finished up my conversation with the manager, and practically ran up to him asking "Can I have a hug?" 
To which he was like "Of course!"

And ah. It was just...good. 
To have that grounding moment. 
Where I could just cling to someone tightly for a moment.
To where I could finally talk a bit more about the fire and explain what happened and get more than a "Oh, well I'm glad you're okay!" And just get a moment to recenter myself and pull my mind from it's spiraling "what ifs" 

It was a real blessing for me in that moment.
Just to have him come in.
He told me that he'd considered coming in Saturday actually, but then as he'd driven by gone like "Nah, I'll come in Monday instead." 

It's so crazy how things work out like that.
How people can end up being placed so that they're where they need to be when they're needed. 

I'm so grateful that he came to the store today. So. Grateful. 

Until you next see these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi