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Silent Night, Holy Night.

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Image from StayathomeChic tumblr
I love the holidays.  I love, even more, the final few days before Christmas in particular.  They are always so busy, so hectic, but so magical.  This week didn't quite go as most do.

I originally had a blog post drawn up about exchanging gifts with The Boyfriend, friends, and work.  It was about recent holiday parties, the outfits I wore to said parties, and throwing myself a pity party for how I've been sick the last few days and had to miss out on things x, y, and z.

Then today happened. 

Today started off annoyingly, I woke up sick, and had to call in to work again - resulting in also missing our corporate holiday lunch.  To understand the rest of the day I now have to backtrack a little bit.

In February of last year, a major tornado hit the city that I live in.  At the time, I was renting a one bedroom house, and my boyfriend and two of our friends lived next door, along with my two cats.  On this particular morning, my dad, who has had various health issues within the last seven years, had to go to the hospital.  I was at the hospital with him all day until around 6 P.M., when I finally went home to rest, because I had a migraine.  It was rainy, but nothing scary or out of the ordinary(I was wearing white pants, I couldn't have expected it to be too bad outside, right?).
When I got home, I walked inside, and made the decision to walk next door and rest at my boyfriend's house instead, even though he himself was at work.  I laid down to rest, and heard the tornado sirens (which were nothing unusual; they went off anytime a tornado warning was announced, and given the fact that I had never experienced a tornado, I just found this extremely irritating).  I kind of laughed to myself, and thought, "well, I might as well put my pants back on just in case something does happen", entirely joking.  It was then that I looked outside of the window, and saw that they sky was entirely yellow, and not a drop of rain was falling.  My stomach turned.  I then heard the sound.  It was a sound that I cannot quite explain, some kind of cross between a train coming full speed at you, mixed with a high-pitched scream, and a rushing noise...  I ran into the living room to ask my friend if he heard it, as he was complaining about the internet having quit working moments before.  As he took off his headphones, I saw his eyes get bigger, he ran to the front door and it practically opened itself.  He yelled at me to get in the hallway.  I grabbed Delilah, one of my cats, and frantically looked for Lily, my other - but there wasn't any time, and he practically drug me into the hallway as we shut all of the doors around us.  
Within moments, it hit.  Again, it is a moment I will never forget, yet I can't quite explain it.  I heard trees cracking and slamming into the ground, houses, other trees - whatever they could crash into.  I heard the wind, I felt the wind, I saw the wind.  My ears were popping uncontrollably, and all we could do was hold on to each other and keep our heads down.  The doors we had just shut around us to protect us were flying open, and windows were shattering.  I couldn't distinguish one second from the next - it felt like a flash in time, yet it drug on in my mind for hours.  In reality, it was about two and a half minutes. 
Then it was silent.
 Just as soon as it had started, it was over.  Car alarms filled the silence, and we went outside.  Power lines were down, cars were smashed, and my home that I had just left not ten minutes prior, had a tree through the room where I would have been asleep.  The Boyfriend's mom called, I called my mom, I called The Boyfriend.  I couldn't reach enough people in enough time.  Adrenaline must have taken over, because I wasn't scared - I was worrying about everyone else, about the city, about what had just happened.

It wasn't until weeks after that, that the fear slowly crept up on me.  I developed an extreme hyper-vigilance.  Any situation which was not under my control entirely would send me into a panic for my life.  Something as simple as riding in a vehicle with someone else driving would make me almost come to tears.  This is something which I still struggle with to this day.  The smallest thunderstorm can send me into panic attacks.  It's a fear that you can't fully realize until after the fact, when you are able to take a look around, breathe in deeply, and understand fully that you were lucky to be alive.

I mention all of this, to attempt to help you understand why today has had such an impact on me.  I woke up slightly sick, yes, but not dying.  Still, I was annoyed at myself for missing such an important holiday lunch, and for having to miss another day at work.  When I saw the weather forecast for the day, it just added to my annoyance.  I knew I was going to be anxious, and I was upset that such a thing would happen two days before Christmas.  I was texting my mother, as I usually do in these situations, as well as checking local, national, and amateur news websites and TV stations to keep up on the storm...  When I realized that I was not yet in any danger, yet my parents, and my hometown, was.  My stomach dropped.  My parent's power was out, so they were relying on me to update them on the storm, yet everything I saw and read indicated that this storm - which now had a tornado touching down along a major highway - was headed straight towards them.  I kept in touch and made sure to keep her texting me until I was sure the storm was past them.  

I then began to see the reports online, people's homes, businesses, everything.  Destroyed.  My parents were lucky, they had no damage.  The rest of the town was not as lucky.  Two fatalities, two more in another county.  Places I've known for years, forever, gone in an instant.  Dozens injured, people missing.

I want to end this blog on a happy note, truly, I do.  But there isn't a happy ending just yet.  
Tomorrow, I am going to my hometown to assist in cleaning and searching.  I am going to do whatever I can.  And no, it's not the magical days leading up to Christmas I was expecting - there will be no OOTD for my jeans, gloves, and t-shirt.  No wine, no tutorial for my rained-on pontytail I will be sporting tomorrow.  But that all seems so insignificant at a time like this.

Everyone, please hold your loved ones close.  It is so unfathomable until it, in my case quite literally, hits so close to home.  

My sister gets home tomorrow evening, and then we will still have our family Christmas as planned.  But until then, tomorrow is going to have a different kind of focus for me.

"Sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace." My thoughts and prayers go out to all of those lost, missing, or hurt today.  If anyone can help at all, please visit helpcolumbia.com.

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About the Author

I am a senior-level Business student at The University of Southern Miss. I've taken to blogging off and on since I was 13 years old. I blog about anything from beauty and fashion, to home design, to my daily life. My career goals include going into Real Estate, Event Planning, and maybe even Entrepreneurship eventually. Who knows? I wake up in a new world every day.

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