This represents where I'm trying to get to. It does get better and there is always hope. We saw this at the beach and I choose to take it as a reminder that I am not alone in this thing, and I never was.

This was my moms room, or whats left of it, because of the smoke damage, they had to strip the room to its walls and start over.

The picture below is the view from downstairs facing my and Gabe's rooms.

This picture below is facing the front door. It all looks so hollow now, its hard to accept we will live here again.

The stairs heading up to the second floor. The white stuff you will see on every durface is some stuff they spray on the wood to get rid of the heavy smoky smell. I hope it works.

This is the living room, where we watched TV. It looks so odd now, so empty now. I find it hard some times to remember what it was like living there, like it was a lifetime ago.

control

It all comes down to control, if you want to survey the issue in its entirety. I lost total control over every aspect of my life in one fell swoop, and it shook me to the core. I am always, and pride myself on being in control. I had things that were well and truly MINE, that I didn't have to share with anyone. I lost all of that. I no longer have anything that's just MINE. I am working on that now. I want to re-establish my life, start over. I could look at this as the worst thing that ever happened to me, or possibly the best. this was my warning shot. It could have been SO much worse than it was. I could have lost my kids, I could have lost my brother, the pets my mom, my life. This could be a disaster, or it could be just the wake up call I needed that I need to re-evaluate my place in this world. I'm looking at thing with new eyes now, like I hadn't seen it before. I'm thinking about writing again, taking cooking classes, maybe doing karate. It has started with my diet. I've regained control of my eating habits and am starting to undo the damage the last few months has done to my waist line. Its only my jumping off point. Check with me later tonight to see new pictures of the construction inside the house.

I want to say I'm moving forward. Maybe progress is not moving backwards. i feel a change coming, growing inside of me. This period of time, as I look back is going to be a defining moment of my life, one that changes everything I think I know and feel. I know there will come a time, when I look back on the time before the fire and wonder if what I was thinking. Why I didn't see it...whatever it is. I know I'm changing, and that makes me nervous, as change always does. I like the status quo and get a little bent out of shape if someone rocks the boat. And when its GOD who rocks the boat, well I get seriously pissed.

You must understand, God and I have had issues for a while now, since he took my dad from me, entirely too early by my opinion. I was, and still am to some degree pissed about that, but I like to think we were slowly working through it. I had at least resumed talking to him, although haltingly with a touch of resentment on my part. I was beginning to see that somethings you need to accept as the will of God and move on. Death in a part of life no matter how much we try to fight it. Death is sad but natural.

But this??? How exactly is THIS mess the will of God. I used to believe everything He did had a purpose, but now I have to wonder. What purpose could there possibly be to take away everything that ever gave me a sense of security? Perhaps, in a logical sense I am now to look for my sense of security within myself and not within the Things. I could see the logic in that. I still hate it though. I have to wonder why He felt this need to strip me bare, as it were, and leave me with only myself to lean on.

I can honestly say I have never felt as Alone as I did those first few weeks after the fire. I know now there is a place past that feeling. I'm just not quite there yet. But I feel maybe just maybe I'm on my way.

I aim to misbehave....

“I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. But I've bought a big bat. I'm all ready you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!” ~ Dr. Seuss

"I'm so far away, each step that I take's on my way home"
-Bon Jovi

This sums up nicely where I am right now. I think sometimes I'm never going to get to the end of this nonsense that is my life right now. Logically of course, that's not true but I can't help but wonder when I will see the light at the end of the tunnel. I saw the inside of the house yesterday and it's so hard to tell if they are doing anything at all, except moving stuff around. There's still no walls upstairs, but at least the 6 foot hole in my floor had been repaired. I have to wonder if I will ever feel truly safe in there again or if I will close my eyes at night and wonder what if. I was consumed at first with thoughts of "What if this had happened in the middle of the night?" The smoke was so think and it burned so quickly I might not have been here to even write this, let alone my kids. and we wonder why sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, unable to fall back asleep. I know I shouldn't let thoughts like that infect my mind, but they seem to wander in of their own accord. That smell, the scent of fire and smoke will probably be in the house forever, one I know I will not forget.

If you remember the earlier post with the picture of the bathroom, this picture above and to the leftis that same room, emptied out and cleaned out, stripped down. The most overwhelming emotion with all of this is feeling so exposed. I am by nature a private person and having everyone know all of my business drove me crazy. I have adjusted to it, but so far it still is not a natural state for me at all. That's part of the reason for the post, to force me to take the time to ask myself where i am this particular day, to stop and take a mental check, to ask myself how I'm faring. So far, I'm still here. That is progress.

They had to strip off all of the siding because most of it was lost. The picture above all the way on the top and on the left was Pats room, just after work began, i think. With this sort of tear down, it can actually be really hard to tell which room is which.

This is just after the work began, some of the blackness is being cleaned up. The amount of work needed was overwhelming. I'm not one to hide from my life, but never in my life did I want to do that more. I just wanted it all to go away.

This gives a really good concept of our starting place, ground zero, as it were. Still to this day I sometimes find myself have a hard time accepting reality. All I can think here, is this isn't my house, someone else lives here. But I have to keep reminding myself we will get there. Patience has never been my strong suit but I'm gonna need buckets of it to do this. I've been through worse, we've been through worse. I can do this.

This is whats left of the ceiling in my room. The fire bunred for hours without anyone knowing it so it had tons of time to do tons of damage. The guilt that I first felt, since it started in my room, was overwhelming, did I do something to cause this, or could I have prevented this disaster? I know now or at least I'm trying to move past that. I've a Virgo so guilt and I know each other well. I still have not been able to truly get my head around the enormity of what has happened. I find myself wondering, sometimes if I will wake up tomorrow and this will be one hell of a bad dream. no such luck. This is my life and I hate it.