I’m going to cut to the chase, my apartment was broken into. I was burglarized. My privacy was violated. My security has been ransacked. Words are muddling into one, but the synonyms seem to all make sense. Tomorrow will make two weeks since this happened. This is how my March began and yes, now the month will probably hold some ominous tinge for the next couple of years. But in the last two weeks, I’ve realized some interesting things:

1. People are more resilient than they think.

2. You can go through a series of emotions in an astonishingly short amount of time.

3. The knowledge that “it can always be worse,” really does help put things in perspective.

4. We need to accept the healing process.

5. True friends rise to the occasion when you are at your lowest.

6. Stuff is replaceable, people and pets are not.

It is really easy to feel defeated when something like a break in happens to you because your home is supposed to be the place that is safe. It’s supposed to be the place that is yours. It symbolizes something private so yeah, it sucks when some unauthorized douche-bag goes in there and dismantles everything you worked for. It’s not completely about what you lost that’s tangible. What matters is the stuff that’s unseen.

The sentimental value of the graduation gift your mom gave you.

The emotional value of a gift given to you by your brother-in-law on the day he married your sister.

The memory of having something that used to be your late grandma’s.

I may as well have just laid down on the floor curled up into a tight ball that first week. But then I thought about how experiences like this can obliterate people. You could just lay the fuck down and give up on the world because it’s full of crappy ass people. But within a couple of days I decided that I wasn’t going to lay down. So I got the fuck up a day later and went to work. I made kids at my school smile to heal my hurt. I became active in my push to get an ET to my apartment to look for fingerprints and succeeded. I started my own search for my stuff. I was proactive and filed a claim. I yelled at the management company of my building when they fucked up.

I stopped being the sad, apologetic woman waiting for shit to get done.

Yes, I’m hurt. Yes, I’m slightly paranoid. Yes, sometimes I’m scared. But do you want to know what else I am?

I am thankful to have the support of the people who really care about me.

I am aware that things could have been worse.

I am more vigilant of my surroundings.

I am resilient.

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