A couple of weekends ago, we were painting our bathrooms. After two days of inhaling paint fumes, I found myself in our basement doing the inevitable and dreaded clean-up of all the paint supplies. I hardly ever go down into our basement. Aside from throwing the odd box down there from time to time, it’s really Steve’s terrain and frankly, I usually even forget that it’s there. During this rare moment though when I was in our basement, I found myself feeling very unsettled. As I stood on the cold, concrete floor, hunched over the big plastic sink cleaning the paint brushes, I felt like I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I’ll admit that it caught me a bit off guard. Finally, I heard Steve upstairs coming towards the basement stairs and it suddenly hit me…For about four months, from September to December, after I graduated from University, I used to live in a basement not unlike the one I had just been standing in.
As I’ve discussed many times before, the year that I graduated was a very hard time for me. I was going through a devastating break-up, I was overwhelmed at the thought of not being a student anymore, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life and the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel had most definitely been turned off for an indeterminate amount of time. Needless to say that it wasn’t amongst my brightest of days. During this time, it was very hard to make decisions regarding housing when I didn’t have a full-time job (or any job for that matter) and I didn’t know if I was staying in Ottawa or moving away. The extraordinary problem solver that is my mother, promptly stepped in and took hold of the situation with a sense of perspective that I simply wasn’t capable of at the time. She arranged for me to live with some friends of hers that had just moved to the region and weren’t using their basement. It wasn’t ideal but, it was inexpensive and non-committal. It would give the time and flexibility that I needed to figure things out without many of the external stresses that were already making my life very challenging.
So, late that August, I packed my stuff (which wasn’t very much) into the back of their pick-up truck and we drove to the outskirts of the original city boundaries of Gatineau, Quebec. I had never lived in Quebec before and I had never even seen suburban Gatineau before, but as we drove further and further away, I began to feel relieved at the distance that I was putting between my self and the memories that were making me feel trapped. Sure enough, we arrived and sure enough, it was indeed a basement. The floor was concrete, there was insulation along the walls covered in clear plastic, there were wooden beams in all directions and a big, loud furnace in the corner just next to where my bed would be. No doubt, it would be gloomy but then again, so was my life…so it seemed oddly appropriate at the time. Looking back, I think that by this time, I was almost prepared to just roll over and accept the despair that seemed to have taken me over. My soul was tired and beaten, and I no longer had the energy to fight it anymore. That is, until one crisp, sunny morning when planes started to fall from the sky…
I woke up in the basement of September 11th, 2001 and just stared up at the ceiling while I listened to the amplified sound of feet walking up above. For the past couple of weeks, that sound had become the essence of what my life had become…me, hunkered down in a cold, dark cave while the sound of other people’s lives woke me up in the night. I began to despise the very sound of the family living up above…the sound of them sitting down to dinner together…the sound of them getting ready to go out for the night…even the sound of them arguing over the car…it all just seemed like such a cruel reminder of the hollow existence that I was enduring. In fact, the sound came to bother me so much that since then, I’ve never lived beneath anyone ever again.
I’m not sure how long I stayed in my trance while I listened to their morning routine above me but eventually, the furnace kicked in and I was startled back to reality. I rolled over in my bed, tried to catch of glimmer of the outside world through the tiny window in the corner and turned on my stereo that was next to my bed. Just as the song finished, the DJ from the morning show came on and said “for those of you just tuning in, we’ve just received news that a plane has just crashed into the World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan. There is still no word of casualties however it is suspected that this was indeed, an act of terrorism. We will report back with any further details as we receive them. I repeat…we are receiving reports that the United States of America has just been attacked by terrorist.”
Given that I was already running late for work, I quickly got dressed, grabbed a walkman that was sitting on the living room table and ran out of the house. As I turned to close the door behind me, I noticed that the others had forgotten to turn the television off when they left for work. As I approached to hit the power button on the remote control, I quickly glanced up and realized, to my horror, that I was watching a second plane approach the towers. I stood stunned as the impact occurred…not just to the World Trade Center but also to my terrified eyes.
The rest of my day was spent in a fog of confusion. I had managed to catch the bus to work in downtown Ottawa only to find out that businesses everywhere were shutting down for the day. Police and RCMP could be found in every corner of the nation’s capital as we had suddenly turned to survival mode. With the American Embassy, the Prime Minister’s Residence and Parliament Hill all within four blocks of each other, downtown Ottawa had become chaotic with panic. I remember a bunch of us standing in front of television at the Radio Shack store downtown watching everything unfold live before us. Shortly after, the manager came and turned off the television because we were too many in the store and were creating a fire hazard. Funny…literally three minutes earlier we had watched the first tower collapse and all the while, we were considered a fire hazard.
Shortly after the attacks occurred, the RCMP had closed down all of the interprovincial bridges between Ontario and Quebec and I could no longer get home. I felt stuck in a war zone with no way out and no safe place to go. As every minute passed, businesses were closing their doors and the roads were congested with commuters making their way back to their families. But I had nowhere to go. I had no friends in town or family that I could go to. All of my colleagues had returned to their own homes and I felt all alone and desperately afraid. I finally found my way to the gym that I had been a member of and amazingly, they were still open. I spent the next four hours with the few people still forced to work and we watched and cried and wondered how the world would ever be the same.
Eventually, they too were given the go ahead to shut their doors and once again, I was out on my own. I headed to a corner store nearby and while inside, I overheard a cab driver say that one of the bridges had just been re-opened about twenty minutes earlier. I desperately plead for him to take me home and an hour and a half later, I arrived back at my basement. While the entire world had changed…the basement had not. It was still cold, dark and damp, but it was all that I had at the time and it would have to be good enough.
I hunkered down in my bed for the next couple of days and never took my eyes off the television. I ate gummy bears and drank chocolate milk and never received a single phone call from anymore…nor did I make one. In the depths of the night, as the family upstairs was curled up on the couch together, quiet as ever, I had no one; no friends, no family, not even any neighbors to go through this hard time with. I only had this basement. Then, and only then, did I realize just how far I had really fallen. I had drifted beyond sadness and into apathy…a dangerous little hole that knows nothing but hopelessness.
That was my darkest day. And about four months later, on January 1st, 2002, it would be become my second darkest day (a post for another time) but it was also the day when I discovered that I wanted things to change. For the first time in a long time, I cared again. Or at least came to recognize that perhaps I had still really cared all along.
I would continue to live in the basement for four more months after that and while it would prove to be one of the saddest times for me, it was also a time that helps me to appreciate every moment after that so much more. It sounds ridiculous in a way but I needed the basement. I needed to know that even the dampest and darkest of places couldn’t break my spirit. I needed to know that enduring one of the scariest days in my life without anyone else to share it with also couldn’t break my spirit. Mostly, I needed to know that although it may have seemed that way for a while…I hadn’t actually given up on myself.
In the months that followed, I found my first career, made new friends, learned what it was like to be in my own company and eventually, moved back to the city that I loved and into my own (and first) apartment. I moved into the top floor of that apartment building actually and for all the stairs that it took me to get there…I was always elated to be on the top floor…in a room with a view. Many challenging and sad times still followed as I tried to figure myself out again but none as hard as that moment, on that day, in that place. I pray daily that I never have to be there again but if there is one token of wisdom that I took away from such an experience it’s that whether it be the cold, dark corner of a house or the cold, dark corner of your life…if you ever find yourself in the basement, it means that there’s no where left to go but up! And take my word for it…that is reason enough to wake up every day and search for the tiny bit of light and the glimmering rays of hope that shine through that small corner window, even if it is tucked away behind the furnace.
As I’ve discussed many times before, the year that I graduated was a very hard time for me. I was going through a devastating break-up, I was overwhelmed at the thought of not being a student anymore, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life and the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel had most definitely been turned off for an indeterminate amount of time. Needless to say that it wasn’t amongst my brightest of days. During this time, it was very hard to make decisions regarding housing when I didn’t have a full-time job (or any job for that matter) and I didn’t know if I was staying in Ottawa or moving away. The extraordinary problem solver that is my mother, promptly stepped in and took hold of the situation with a sense of perspective that I simply wasn’t capable of at the time. She arranged for me to live with some friends of hers that had just moved to the region and weren’t using their basement. It wasn’t ideal but, it was inexpensive and non-committal. It would give the time and flexibility that I needed to figure things out without many of the external stresses that were already making my life very challenging.
So, late that August, I packed my stuff (which wasn’t very much) into the back of their pick-up truck and we drove to the outskirts of the original city boundaries of Gatineau, Quebec. I had never lived in Quebec before and I had never even seen suburban Gatineau before, but as we drove further and further away, I began to feel relieved at the distance that I was putting between my self and the memories that were making me feel trapped. Sure enough, we arrived and sure enough, it was indeed a basement. The floor was concrete, there was insulation along the walls covered in clear plastic, there were wooden beams in all directions and a big, loud furnace in the corner just next to where my bed would be. No doubt, it would be gloomy but then again, so was my life…so it seemed oddly appropriate at the time. Looking back, I think that by this time, I was almost prepared to just roll over and accept the despair that seemed to have taken me over. My soul was tired and beaten, and I no longer had the energy to fight it anymore. That is, until one crisp, sunny morning when planes started to fall from the sky…
I woke up in the basement of September 11th, 2001 and just stared up at the ceiling while I listened to the amplified sound of feet walking up above. For the past couple of weeks, that sound had become the essence of what my life had become…me, hunkered down in a cold, dark cave while the sound of other people’s lives woke me up in the night. I began to despise the very sound of the family living up above…the sound of them sitting down to dinner together…the sound of them getting ready to go out for the night…even the sound of them arguing over the car…it all just seemed like such a cruel reminder of the hollow existence that I was enduring. In fact, the sound came to bother me so much that since then, I’ve never lived beneath anyone ever again.
I’m not sure how long I stayed in my trance while I listened to their morning routine above me but eventually, the furnace kicked in and I was startled back to reality. I rolled over in my bed, tried to catch of glimmer of the outside world through the tiny window in the corner and turned on my stereo that was next to my bed. Just as the song finished, the DJ from the morning show came on and said “for those of you just tuning in, we’ve just received news that a plane has just crashed into the World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan. There is still no word of casualties however it is suspected that this was indeed, an act of terrorism. We will report back with any further details as we receive them. I repeat…we are receiving reports that the United States of America has just been attacked by terrorist.”
Given that I was already running late for work, I quickly got dressed, grabbed a walkman that was sitting on the living room table and ran out of the house. As I turned to close the door behind me, I noticed that the others had forgotten to turn the television off when they left for work. As I approached to hit the power button on the remote control, I quickly glanced up and realized, to my horror, that I was watching a second plane approach the towers. I stood stunned as the impact occurred…not just to the World Trade Center but also to my terrified eyes.
The rest of my day was spent in a fog of confusion. I had managed to catch the bus to work in downtown Ottawa only to find out that businesses everywhere were shutting down for the day. Police and RCMP could be found in every corner of the nation’s capital as we had suddenly turned to survival mode. With the American Embassy, the Prime Minister’s Residence and Parliament Hill all within four blocks of each other, downtown Ottawa had become chaotic with panic. I remember a bunch of us standing in front of television at the Radio Shack store downtown watching everything unfold live before us. Shortly after, the manager came and turned off the television because we were too many in the store and were creating a fire hazard. Funny…literally three minutes earlier we had watched the first tower collapse and all the while, we were considered a fire hazard.
Shortly after the attacks occurred, the RCMP had closed down all of the interprovincial bridges between Ontario and Quebec and I could no longer get home. I felt stuck in a war zone with no way out and no safe place to go. As every minute passed, businesses were closing their doors and the roads were congested with commuters making their way back to their families. But I had nowhere to go. I had no friends in town or family that I could go to. All of my colleagues had returned to their own homes and I felt all alone and desperately afraid. I finally found my way to the gym that I had been a member of and amazingly, they were still open. I spent the next four hours with the few people still forced to work and we watched and cried and wondered how the world would ever be the same.
Eventually, they too were given the go ahead to shut their doors and once again, I was out on my own. I headed to a corner store nearby and while inside, I overheard a cab driver say that one of the bridges had just been re-opened about twenty minutes earlier. I desperately plead for him to take me home and an hour and a half later, I arrived back at my basement. While the entire world had changed…the basement had not. It was still cold, dark and damp, but it was all that I had at the time and it would have to be good enough.
I hunkered down in my bed for the next couple of days and never took my eyes off the television. I ate gummy bears and drank chocolate milk and never received a single phone call from anymore…nor did I make one. In the depths of the night, as the family upstairs was curled up on the couch together, quiet as ever, I had no one; no friends, no family, not even any neighbors to go through this hard time with. I only had this basement. Then, and only then, did I realize just how far I had really fallen. I had drifted beyond sadness and into apathy…a dangerous little hole that knows nothing but hopelessness.
That was my darkest day. And about four months later, on January 1st, 2002, it would be become my second darkest day (a post for another time) but it was also the day when I discovered that I wanted things to change. For the first time in a long time, I cared again. Or at least came to recognize that perhaps I had still really cared all along.
I would continue to live in the basement for four more months after that and while it would prove to be one of the saddest times for me, it was also a time that helps me to appreciate every moment after that so much more. It sounds ridiculous in a way but I needed the basement. I needed to know that even the dampest and darkest of places couldn’t break my spirit. I needed to know that enduring one of the scariest days in my life without anyone else to share it with also couldn’t break my spirit. Mostly, I needed to know that although it may have seemed that way for a while…I hadn’t actually given up on myself.
In the months that followed, I found my first career, made new friends, learned what it was like to be in my own company and eventually, moved back to the city that I loved and into my own (and first) apartment. I moved into the top floor of that apartment building actually and for all the stairs that it took me to get there…I was always elated to be on the top floor…in a room with a view. Many challenging and sad times still followed as I tried to figure myself out again but none as hard as that moment, on that day, in that place. I pray daily that I never have to be there again but if there is one token of wisdom that I took away from such an experience it’s that whether it be the cold, dark corner of a house or the cold, dark corner of your life…if you ever find yourself in the basement, it means that there’s no where left to go but up! And take my word for it…that is reason enough to wake up every day and search for the tiny bit of light and the glimmering rays of hope that shine through that small corner window, even if it is tucked away behind the furnace.
4 comments:
Thanks for stopping by my blog.
Thanks for sharing your story!
Gen you've said it all again! This is all you need to remeber, especially when it comes to the conversation you and I had via FB a few weeks back! LOVE YOU Gen E Girl!
You are such a great story teller. Once I started reading I couldn't stop until I was finished. Even though it meant my dinner was getting cold.
Thanks so much Joe and thank you for coming by!!
But note to self...my posts will still be here even after dinner!!!!
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