How to lose a cat and shatter glass on a Friday, in less than 30 minutes.

When I signed up for to work with the Red Cross, I didn't anticipate I would be working in the department of disaster response. After the initial orientation and discussing my placement with my supervisor, she suggested the disaster team would be a great area for me to volunteer my skills.

"Your empathy will help so many people!" she gushed.
"Sure!" I replied. "I'll help out where ever you need me the most. Besides, disaster response is my specialty these days."

The key word in the previous statement is response. To understand, let's take a look at the word response. The word response means to answer or reply. Simple. I can answer and reply to disaster just fine, as it only requires you to acknowledge. In this case, acknowledge said disaster. Easy. I can spot disaster like a Navy Seal sniper can see threats 100 miles away in complete darkness. But when I spot disaster in my scope, I hesitate what to do next. Do I shoot it? Capture it? Radio another sniper to take it out? Run? Act like I didn't see anything and go on with my life? There are so many different ways to deal with it.

I might be great at response, but I discovered yesterday that I'm still learning how to cope with the aftermath of disasters, particularly post 2009.

~

The realization of the status of my coping skills came Friday afternoon while I was at Ryan's house and he was at work. First of all, I was elated because he trusted me enough to leave me in his house alone. My girlie mind told me this was the start of him learning to trust me.

He was taking a risk and taking a chance on me.

Of course I didn't want to disappoint him, so I did my best to keep the house clean and made use of my time in solitude. I say solitude, but I wasn't alone, entirely. Eli (Ryan's roommate) was out of town, and Sassy, Eli's cat, was in the house with me. Sassy hasn't been spayed, so she's in heat, constantly trying to escape."Whatever you do, don't let Sassy out," Ryan instructed before he left. "I won't. I promise," and I kissed him in an effort to put his mind at ease.

The afternoon went by smoothly, and I stayed busy, working outside on the back porch and writing my memoir. Ryan called to check in with me around 5 o' clock. After we hung up, I got ready so we could leave for dinner when he came home from work. As I was applying mascara in front of the bathroom mirror, I couldn't help but anticipate his arrival home.

This is gonna be SO awesome! He'll get home from work and see that his house and still here...and I'll be here to give him a welcome home kiss...and Sassy's still here... and nothing is broken...and he'll trust me. Speaking of which, where is Sassy? I haven't seen her in awhile. She's probably still on that chair in Ryan's room.

I finished applying my mascara and changed. Then I got all my girlie products together and walked into Ryan's bedroom to find my go-bag so I could put everything away. I glanced over at the chair and Sassy wasn't there. Since he would be back soon, I wanted to find her before he got home. I started walking around the house calling, "Here kitty, kitty, kitty! Sassy!" This went on for about 10 minutes, and I started to feel panic. "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty" calls turned into, "Where the fuck are you? You fuckin' cat!" demands. I looked everywhere for her. My search and rescue proved unsuccessful. Then Ryan came home.

"I'm in trouble, I'm so sorry, I can't find Sassy anywhere. She may have gotten out while I was outside." I admitted to him.
He immediately asked, "What?! Are you serious?! Where did you see her last?! I knew this would happen!" 

It was the first time I heard him sound panicked and mad.

He started frantically looking for her all over the house, in all the rooms, then into in the backyard. I went scouring the front yard in an effort to try and help. Nothing. No Sassy. Not even a neighborhood cat around that I could catnap to replace her. I could tell Ryan was upset, which made me nervous. Out of force of habit from a former relationship, my immediate reaction was to go to the bedroom and sit down on the bed. I thought Ryan was going to scream and yell at me.

This was how I learned to survive when I made a mistake.

Ryan walked into the bedroom, and I felt a creepy chill start at the back of my neck and fall down my spine. He said, "I have to call my mom and tell her we're going to be late," then he walked back into the living room. Even though I didn't think he would actually hurt me, I could feel my heart racing nervously and I stayed silent. The silence was interrupted by a loud crash and I flinched. Something broke. It sounded like glass shattering. I didn't know if I was having a flash back or if the sound was caused from him breaking something because he was angry.

I wanted to get up, but I didn't move. It was a risk I wasn't ready to take.

So I stayed in the bedroom and tried to calm my inner fear so I could think of how to solve this without him breaking up with me, or breaking anything else. Before I could find the courage to get up and go to the living room to talk to him, he walked back into the bedroom.

"I'm so sorry Ryan, I didn't want you to come home and it be like this", I pleaded.
"It's okay, it's just Eli I'm worried about. He's going to freak out when he gets home," he said, trying to sound as calm as possible.
"Do you want me to go home?" I offered.

"No, of course not! Why would you think that?" he wanted to know, almost startled to hear I would assume that.
"Well, I know you're already mad at me...and did you break something in the living room?" I asked him.
"That was the fan. It just fell from the ceiling. Like literally. I was just standing there and I heard it make a funny noise, so I looked at it and saw it was hanging by the wires, so I turned it off. Then as it starting slowing down it just fell. There's glass everywhere in the living room," he told me. 

I couldn't help but quietly laugh. He hadn't been home more than thirty minutes or so and all hell broke loose. I got up and walked into the living room and helped him clean up the glass. As I was sweeping, I heard a tap at the sliding door. 

It was that fuckin' cat. I played cool and calm so she wouldn't get startled and run away. I opened the door, then swiftly scooped her up into my arms and held her close to my body. I was so excited to see her, I kissed her stupid cat head. Then I shut the door so she couldn't get out again. 

"She's back Ryan! Sassy's back!" I shouted. 

He rushed into the living room, "Thank God!" he said.

On the way to dinner, I started thinking about how the situation forced feelings of anxiety to resurface within me. I thought I conquered the disasters from 2009, so I was slightly disheartened to find out that I'm experiencing residual stress from everything. I hope I can learn better ways to deal, and better strategies on how to cope with it all.

There's a part of me that wonders what would've happened if the cat didn't come back. Would I have broken Ryan's trust? Would he be mad? Would he have broken up with me?

This won't be the last mistake I make. That's a promise I can actually keep. But through this mistake, and taking a risk I didn't think I was ready for, I learned to become a little more calm and I learned to trust him just a little more.

~

So this morning, I walked into the Red Cross building for my first disaster training course. Even though I wasn't there right on time, they let me in the building and were happy I showed up. When it was my turn to exercise the disaster scenarios I felt confident.

We won't ever be able to protect ourselves entirely from disaster, but we can learn to trust ourselves, each other, and our ability to make the right decisions when these situations occur. That's the key factor in salvaging life during these stressful, split second moments of tragedy. My instructor was impressed with my confidence, especially since I'm the youngest person in disaster training, according to our chapter.

I passed with flying colors.    

We are magnified.
We're making moves so blind.

I got you on my time.
--Minus the Bear/My Time