Despite the fact that I could be on a day shift schedule right now there’s a certain rightness that I’m still typing this quietly on my phone at 3 in the morning.
We got our reviews yesterday. My boss, who is a pretty big deal ( our shelter being one of the most high profile ones) gave me a glowing review and said she appreciated my hard work and hoped I’d come back. There’d be a future for me in it, if I did. Which was very nice to hear.
She also let us take the night off! So we went out with some of the day shift crew for drinks and they told us what we’d missed that day.
It was amazing how badly everyone needed to decompress. All of us had been under such extremely stressful circumstances… and once again (because this seems to be my lot in life) those who were with us will be the only ones who’ll understand. If my life is a continuous struggle to be understood…well that’s why I write pretty much. To not feel so alone.
We parted ways and came back to sleep in the tents one more night. I got up at 3 and emailed myself book notes till 6 — my writing brain’s back online, after playing third fiddle to nursing-brain and general exhaustion.
And today we drove to Philly and turned in our rental car and napped in luxurious beds near even more luxurious thermostats, and gilded indoor plumbing.
It’s been another small kind of decompression, easing back out into the rest of the world, watching the news celebrate shallow people and their absurd “accomplishments” while victims of hurricane Sandy and the work we’ve done are forgotten, having already slid on by.
We’re all leaving very early tomorrow in the morning — I should be back in California around noon, and then it will really be over. This huge thing I’ve done will be in the past, behind me, through… until the next time. Somewhere along the line i drank the kool-aid because I’m pretty sure there’s gonna be a next time, now.