THOUGHTS ABOUT THE EARTHQUAKE

This was an exercise we did in an EAP class, right after the March 18, 2020 earthquake:

The first earthquake I ever experienced was on March 18, 2020, at about 7:10 a.m. The noise woke me first. I thought I heard thunder rumbling, then my bed shook back and forth like a wave. I was paralyzed by fear. Something fell off my book shelf. My mind tried to grasp what was happening because it woke me out of sleep.

I thought, is this thunder? That's really loud thunder--it's actually shaking my bed. Wait, that rumbling is too long to be thunder. THIS MUST BE AN EARTHQUAKE! I began to pray.

I was scared to death to move, and my mind raced to figure out what I should do. Should I get out of bed? Should I run outside? 

My daughter then texted me a link right after with the news about the earthquake on Fox 13. I had been trying to find something myself on my phone when she texted. I wanted to just go back to sleep, in denial. 

I was in a house fire a few years ago and left my house in my pajamas, and that's all I had to wear for a few days. I didn't want that to happen again, so I cautiously got out of bed to get dressed. 

Since I had just had foot surgery a month before, I hadn't been able to wear a shoe on my right foot. Miraculously, I put on a shoe and it didn't hurt.  

I went into my office and turned on my laptop and logged in for work, just in time for my 8:30 meeting. Time escaped me. It was more than an hour since the earthquake, but it seemed like minutes.

Our county and state, and my company, had just begun a quarantine on March 15 due to the COVID-19 (Corona virus), and then on March 18 we have an earthquake! People were joking about playing apocalypse bingo. It's not funny now. 

My house is still creaking, almost three months later.