There is a scene at the end of the 90s movie "Twister" where Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt are strapped to pipes in a water pump facility as a tornado rips through it. The wind is loud as fuck, shit is flying everywhere and in the midst of all this, there is a second where they are in complete awe of how absolutely fucking insane the inside of a tornado is... right before it dissipates completely.
That’s how I feel right now.
My world has been flipped upside down. Alone time has disappeared. Work is in my bedroom. An iPad is my daughter’s classroom. AA meetings are on Zoom, work meetings are on Zoom, family gatherings, on Zoom. (I can’t wait to never have to even say the word zoom ever again.) I’m sanitizing my groceries outside my front door and toilet paper is a distant dream.
I am in the middle of an F5 (sans Bill Paxton) with bad news blaring out of the TV, cat throw up on the rug (somehow, despite the fact that my whole house is wood floors with only two actual rugs), toys scattered everywhere, and I am in awe of how batshit crazy things have gotten.
These are obviously small inconveniences in the grand scheme of things. I have a place to be “safe at home.” I am healthy, I am (mostly) sane, I’m still sober, and I’m so grateful for all of that.
And I can also say that while I’m grateful that I am okay right now, this situation is not ideal.
I’ve learned over the years I’ve been sober that nothing lasts forever. And thank God because that’s a lesson I can apply to both the crisis that the entire world is now facing and the tornado currently blasting its way through my own little universe.
P.S.- If you haven’t watched Twister, it’s about a divorcing couple who chase tornados. It’s one of my all-time favorites (next to Tombstone) and I highly recommend. It stars Bill Paxton (RIP- who was also in Tombstone!), Helen Hunt, and even has Philip Seymour Hoffman (RIP- who was not in Tombstone). It probably streams somewhere, and you should totally watch it.
