Day 37 Reflection: Recovery

Life passes peacefully, and then something bad happens. A town floods, a loved one dies, one's dignity is violated. We feel lost, betrayed, angry that we have suffered this loss. 

Then comes the slow process of recovery. Recovery doesn't come quickly; we must go through the feelings that come with loss, the anger and the sadness and the fear. There's no going through this quickly. We can't recover from someone else's timetable.
 
When we recover from a catastrophic event, we do not return to normal. That place is gone, destroyed by the event. We journey to a new normal, a normal where the event fades into memory and its changes to our lives are reconciled with the past.

 

Recovery

"Here, this won't hurt a bit."

This is my favorite picture from Missouri Hope's moulage headquarters. Here I'm demonstrating various techniques on one of our moulage artists who was kind enough to let me bruise and cut her up pretty badly.

I estimated from yesterday's stats -- 180 roleplayers in three shifts, 4-6 moulage artists per shift -- that boils down to 7-10 roleplayer moulages per person per hour.

I haven't totally recovered yet. I feel like I have jet lag although I haven't gone anywhere -- except to the mythical country of Atlantica, torn by tensions between north and south, crippled by an earthquake and its aftermath. A country I helped create.

Life will be back to normal, back to writing, in a day or so, when I find my feet on firm ground and arrive home again.