This is another long post, and it’s one that’s proven daunting to write – in part because I’ve been really, really raw this week. There’s also talk of the Vermont flooding and the damage it’s done, including to some cemeteries in the state. As hard as it is proving to be to write about, I’m guessing it could be hard to read as well. So consider this a trigger warning – one of few that I’ve put on this blog – and there won’t be any hard feelings if you wait and come back for another post at some other time.

The last time I was in this space, I was waging an epic battle with the property managers in my apartment complex because – well, everything in my personal space was falling apart. Mostly though, I still stand by my belief that there are things that are worth fighting for – especially after this past week.

It was a week ago that most everyone on the east coast of the US from the Carolinas to Maine was worked up over Hurricane Irene. We were expecting a hit here in DC, and since we’d already had an earthquake that week, people were… on edge. My in-laws were going to travel that weekend, with plans well in advance to leave their summer home in the south to head back to New England. And I tried to convince myself that they’d be alright making the trip despite the rain, the wind, and the gloom and doom forecast.

Their trip was fine last Saturday – I think that they got home in record time.

And now, because this is my blog, I’m going to start to skip around a little bit. If you follow me on Twitter, you might have a little bit of a sense of what comes next.

On Sunday, there were a lot of phone calls – despite the fact that VT was weathering more of the storm than had hit here. It didn’t matter how blue the sky was here. It didn’t matter that folks on the web were already talking about the fact that the news leading up to the storm was all hype and fluff. Because we were getting calls that said the water was rising and that the ground in VT couldn’t absorb it all. We were getting calls that said the propane company behind their house hadn’t secured the tanks, and the neighbors were talking about seeing them float by. We were getting calls that talked about a hiss of propane as the tanks started to be swept down the river and that 6 of the 1,000 gallon tanks were now in their backyard. Around this time, there was some talk about Vermont on the web – the first stories about flooding and it looking like the roads were going to wash out. The calls kept coming. Some people without power. My partner’s friends started posting reports to Facebook. She started saying “oh my God” every couple of minutes; I’d ask what, and she’d point to a photo.

For all the time that I spent not wanting to keep living in VT when I was busy trying to run from not so much where I was as who I was and the realizations that I was making about my life, I started to want to be back there a little bit – and then a lot.

This was a strange, strange, strange week. Some of the pictures have been absolutely devastating. Those that were captured at Buzzfeed really didn’t do them justice – and some of them were all too similar to others I was seeing. If you follow that link and look at photo number 3? That building is less than a five minute walk from my in-laws’ house, and my partners mother once worked in it. Photo 27? We drive past that bridge every time we make the trip back north. Photo number 2? While that area received very little destruction from the risen, churning waters in the wake of the storm, it was a weird one to see too, because my therapist’s office was pretty much right there when I saw someone in VT.

These pictures are all intense. None of them are the images that kicked me in the gut and got me trapped in my head. Those pictures were the ones of a cemetery. They were taken by an individual and not shown in many places. They showed coffins washed out of the ground, the force of the water having emptied them. One of them was blue and sized for a child. I lost it a little bit when I imagined a family, 20-30 years ago having buried a child. If they were still in the area, there’s a good chance that they’d just lost their home and most everything in it. And I couldn’t help but think about what it would be like for them to hear that their child’s remains had been washed out of the ground, and washed out of the coffin.

Water.

We drink it every day. We bathe in it. Sometimes we go to a pool or the ocean or a nearby stream and we play in it. But we rarely get to see how much power it has.

In all the thinking that I’ve been doing this week, it strikes me how much this flooding feels like the foundation of a metaphor.

See, when we’re struggling with eating disorders or alcoholism or depression or anything else – it’s like that water. We’re right there. It’s close at hand and it’s just… we do everything we can not to think about what a big deal it could be if only the circumstances were a little bit different because – well, because we think we know what we’re up against, and because it’s easier to just go with it than fight against it. So we stay sad. We stay hungry. We get drunk or we get high. And we think, “I’m around this all the time,” and we see other people who are able to dip their toes in – to just be caught up in their emotion, but able to work through, to go on a diet and then just as easily go off of it, or to have a drink after work with friends without it ever getting to a point of one too many or something that they absolutely need to survive.

It’s like it never dawns on us – while we’re struggling at least – that there may be something more than what meets the eye. It’s like we never think about the fact that, at some point, it may rain and there may not be any place for that water to go. We don’t think about the devastation that something that seems so much a part of every day can create.

(For larger versions of those photos and to see other aerial photos of the damage in startling clarity, please visit the source gallery, keeping in mind that the page loads slowly and will open in a new window)

Now, I’ve gone on a really long time in the post, and if you’re still with it, thank you, because here’s where I get back on track.

No one can predict when the flooding is going to happen in our lives. Most of the time, it’s easy to think about the common-ness, and not about the worst case scenario. I don’t advocate living like the worst possible option is inevitable, but I do recommend keeping an awareness that it is indeed possible – especially if you’re putting off recovery.

What amazes me about Vermont in this post-Irene week is the way that communities have come together. What astounds me is the number of people volunteering or setting up websites to share requests for volunteers or pleas for help or information about food drives. What amazes me is the community that’s being build online – and the support that people are willing to give their neighbors and even strangers. What awes me is the fact that in a place where there is so much loss, there’s also so much hope.

We’re all limited in what we can do as individuals. There are always going to be things that we simply cannot control. But I genuinely believe that we’re all better when we come together and acknowledge how damned hard things can be than when we sit back and think that nothing bad will ever happen.