PTSD redeux

yep, the time's right on the bottom. 7am. why would i be up blogging then? but then you may notice the date- feb. 1st. which always invokes a "huh? so? oh, yeah, right, that's right" sort of response in me.

for those who don't know, it's the anniversary of the fire.

this year, as usual, i'd given absolutely no thought to it at all. then, very early this morning, i had a dream about ch and hugo being over. i was talking about my computer and flickr (since i just started 365 days) and plugging grounders into the outlets and there was a spark. and so i started to pull them out and there was a little flame. and i got them all out, and was staring at it, and hugo was like dude what's up, and i told him. and he tried to assure me it was all fine. and then a little curl of smoke came up from the outlet, and i knew it was in the walls, and there was nothing we could do. we were done for.

i woke up terrified. i tried to go back in, and imagined me going out into the hallway, getting the fire extinguisher. unplugging and everything being fine. but i couldn't make it work. i tried ignoring it and thinking nice thoughts, and so i imagined my girlfriend, and going out for indian food, and her driving me down devon, and that whole block of burn-out buildings from the 5 alarm fire that ruined at least three businesses and i can just imagine the blaze and STOP! not. really. working. very. well.

ended up calling the girlfriend, waking her up and making her listen to my stories, cause that's the whole POINT of girlfriends, isn't it? so when she got up i wasn't going to fall back asleep, so i decided to just get up too. and i decided to post instead of just read my novel. aren't you lucky?

i HATE this about myself. first, it seems all contrived and made up. i work myself into a frenzy every january 31st. but i swear it's subconsious. it's never something i think about. it's just something that happens. sometimes it takes me a few minutes, or looking at a calandar, to realize why it's happening. second, i like to think of myself as fearless and impermiable. trauma makes me stronger, not fearful. but it's not true. third, i don't like the unendingness of it. i want to greive and freak and MOVE ON. it was scary enough when i happened big time a month after the fire. but years later (how many? i don't even rememember. three years? four?) you would think i'd be over it. am i going to wake up terrified at the end of january every year for the rest of my life?