Today is day 23 after hurricane Irma knocked over our whole little island of Sint Maarten. It's a strange process we all are going through. Let me fill you in a little bit on this timeline, and I'm only talking about the mental process in this one.
Before Irma came we were already tired looking back now in retrospect. All the preparations of buying stuff, boarding up the house, securing stuff at work and to be honest the fear of not knowing what as going to happen to us, that on it self was tiring to the max. So Irma came and left us all in shock after this. The first couple of days was just pure survival mode. Make the sure the structure (the hotel where my boyfriend works where we we staying during and after the storm) was safe, and getting the tourists there off island as fast as possible. My job in the hospital was of course priority number 1 taking care of the injured, and same here getting these off island as fast as possible. Everybody from my department ate and slept multiple days in our scrubs there, so make sure everything was able to continue. Communication was down long time, so we all took turns in staying there for a long time. It was perfect actually, a place to stay, food from the red cross, a generator with current, and some wifi to at least contact with my family abroad.
In the days after that most of my friends checked in on being safe ( YAY) but also immediately checked out on staying on the island. (NAY). We went in sort of a grind from hospital work, hotel work, and fixing home work, to after two weeks the opening of the first bar on a day off. A day off?? What do you do with that? Okay, what would I usually do with that? Spend it with the mister going to a nice place, eat nice food, play with the dog on the beach, hang out with friends on the beach. Reality check --> beach gone or full with debris, restaurants vanished, dog staying with friends because we can not stay home as yet, most friends not here anymore because their jobs got swepted away.
You catch my drift right? Chilling without electricity in half smashed bars is reality now, but reality is not so super appealing at this moment. And after a day work (extra overtime pay after working a gazillion hours??? forget it girly, you should be happy to still have a job), going back to the hotel to stay with people who also have nothing else to do but talk about out recovery.
Yesssss, we are make giant steps in getting the economy back up at the moment, but boy.....I'm so tired!