Crisis

I've spent a good deal of my adult life stabilizing finances, home life and emotions to avoid crisis situations. When life throws curve balls, I have a leg to stand on and can ride through with minimal impact. Since last summer, things have been anything but stable and every ball life is throwing at me seems to be causing a new crisis. This has made me think about the magnitude of this particular crisis...the one that knocked the ground out from under me...and I have identified four phases.


Phase 1 - The Immediate.
That first few hours after the crisis. What do we do with the children? Where are we going to sleep tonight? What do we eat right now? What are we going to wear (we literally have the close on our backs)? For us this lasted about 48 hours.

Phase 2 - The Short Term.
The "ok, now what?" Where are we going to live? We have no furniture, a kitchen needs to be set up, we need a safe place to care for the kids and establish a "base camp" for planning the rebuild and moving forward. This only took about three weeks, thanks to all the help that we received!


Phase 3 - The Long Term Temporary.
In this case, the rebuilding process. To most everyone else, the crisis is now past, but we are still living with the effects every day. Every day is another reminder of what is now lost. Every day is another decision. Every day is another potential crisis. Something as simple as a car repair is now a scheduling challenge. A delayed order now requires adjusting three contractors and rearranging timetables so the move in date is not delayed any more than it has to. Everyday is a potential to loose grounding...again! We are working feverishly to move back to the property and end this phase next month.

Phase 4 - The Long Term Emotional.
Simply being back on the property won't be the end of this crisis. It will be the beginning of the journey back to stabilization, to establishing the safety of "home" in a strange place, where we can learn and grow and be nurtured. It is a journey we long for, but holds so much unknown and some days still feels so far away.