Ugh

Tired again. Really, really tired. This morning I woke up, and when I raised my arms to pull the ponytail elastic out of my hair, I doubled over--out of breath and about to faint. I got back in bed and stayed there until 3pm. It took me 3 hours to do about 1 1/2 hours worth of house work yesterday. I don't know what to do about it anymore. When the exhaustion strikes, there is nothing I can do about it. No amount of vitamins, coffee, deep sleep, or healthy eating can stop it. I just have to ride it out and get through it the best that I can. Which is not very well. This is so frustrating, especially since we really need money and I can't make any when I'm like this. And I'm like this at least twice a month. Not two days a month, two weeks. That's half of the time. I hate my traitorous body sometimes. When vaccuming leaves me out of breath and about to pass out, I just want to scream (but I'm too tired for that kind of exertion).
Fuck.

.....
So, 25 days ago I woke up to a loud clap of thunder. I peeked through the blinds on the window behind the bed. Growing up in Texas, I knew exactly what that green sky meant (tornadoes). Great. I knew I wasn't going to get to take a shower or even make any coffee. I dashed into the living room and turned the TV to the weather channel, then realized that a room with 3 large windows and two glass doors was not the best place to be when two tornadoes have already been spotted in the area. So I grabbed the little hand-crank flashlight/radio/alarm that Michael bought for power outages (bought with hurricanes in mind) and went back into the bedroom with the dogs.We have a crawlspace under this house, and part of the concrete foundation actually goes under the ground. I was ready to take the dogs and run for it, but I didn't want to get under there unnecessarily. What? It's fucking dirty under there. I tuned into a local station and found out the tornado had hit the high school. Of all the places, it hits the kids. Later that night, we learned that 8 of them died when the concrete slab roof collapsed on them. Michael's IP's daughter lost two of her friends and ended up with some lacerations on her face, but was otherwise okay.
I never had to get under the house. Our plastic deck furniture didn't even get blown over. Most of the damage was downtown and near the high school. Aerial view
March 1st was also my friend Crystal's birthday. There was a party for her the next night at Scott's house, but she and her husband never showed up. Our friends Chris and Christina didn't show up either. Christina is a SERE instructor, and her husband Chris (who was in WOCS with Michael) is former Navy SAR. Their experience in search and rescue means they were needed. They helped to try and dig the kids out of the rubble the night before, and I'm guessing they really weren't up to partying the next night.
On St. Patrick's day, Michael and I went to the opening of Myori, the new Japanese restaurant in Enterprise (don't laugh, I already made Irish stout stew earlier in the week). We got there really early for dinner and managed to snag a seat at one of the hibachi tables. The table across from us was full of students from the high school. Some had blue and white paw prints painted on their faces, and one had on a T-shirt with the names of the students killed March 1st, and "May we never forget". It was good to see the kids laughing and smiling just over two weeks after the tornado. Another family seated at the same hibachi table as we were told us that Enterprise hadn't had a tornado since 1918.
I hate not being strong enough to help with the clean-up. I hate being too broke to feed the volunteers. This community has been good to me, and it's not at all what I thought a small town in Alabama would be like. The base and flight school make it an international community, so it's not all locals. Of course, the locals are very nice. Even the ones that fit the redneck stereotype.
The best I could do was give a little money to the tornado_fund, and offer some prayers. The people here appreciate both.