Deep down I am a fearful person. Or maybe it isn’t fear, maybe it is just an overactive imagination?
Anyway. I build things up in my mind until they are overwhelming and seep into my dreams.
I was never going to move closer to the coast, because everything on the coast would be destroyed when the “Big One” came and toppled our cities and created these devastating tsnumami’s
Seriously, those were my bedtime dream thoughts for years.
I don’t know if it was because I spent 10 years doing emergency preparedness in downtown Vancouver. I was on the “earthquake” squad in our office tower and saw chaos erupt every time a bus rumbled down the street. But that was in the late 90’s, when everyone was scared of the earthquake.
As time went by, I think Vancouverites became bored of it all. Yes, yes, big one coming… oooh devastation, terrible shaking. What will we do for water (says she who literally had a river 5 steps out of her back yard)
But, I was still scared. I wasn’t thinking of my house tumbling down the hill, or the waters rising the 8 blocks and hundreds of feet to get me. I was thinking of all the other idiots who were going to panic and steal my food and eat my children thinking the world was ending.
But now. Here, on this little island, surrounded by water, I feel entirely safe. I am on a hill, a big, big, big hill. No wave will get me (unless it really is one of those catastrophic end of the world waves) and my house won’t topple.
But most comforting of all, I don’t think there are going to be a bundle of chaotic crazies running around looking to loot, rape and pillage like there might be in the choc-a-bloc streets of the over-crowded city.
Not that that is going to happen.
I feel safer here, alone with the kids, in the middle of a stormy night than I ever did during a bright day in the city. We are pretty self-sufficient here, water, food stored, lots and lots of chocolate. . . I think we may be ok.
But that being said, if you don’t hear from us for awhile after a quake, please send someone to check. I mean, the little dude has these chubby little legs and after a couple weeks without a steak. . . well, you just never know!