How My Relationship Survived the Wildfires This Week

As the fires wind down a little here in Los Angeles it seems like a great time to talk about how to do more than survive in the face of disaster.

The fires were close, so very close, and with that were dozens of people who are very close to me dealing with this disaster in many different ways. Some evacuated and found out their houses were fine, others lost everything, some of us were on high alert for 6 days straight.

One thing is for sure, this was indeed a major stressor on all of these relationships. I had a front row seat as to how different people and different couples showed up with their own “stuff” and how it was received by their partner.

I won’t talk about them here, just me and my wife because it took a lot of navigating and grace to make it thru this disaster together.

Its Tuesday night, we can see the fire from our kitchen window, we are on high alert in the warning zone. My wife looks at me and says “Don’t you want to start packing all of your valuables?!?”

I pick her up by the waist, and start to carry her into the room where our daughter is and make a joke about picking her up too if only she could hold the dogs and guinea pigs!

She laughs a little and says “no seriously, we may have to evacuate and don’t you want to gather your important things”.

She doesn’t get it, she doesn’t get me!

I was raised by a “prepper” I have a single file folder to grab and enough clothes packed for a week, the cars are gassed up, the bags by the door, the pet supplies all ready by the door as well, I have the plan on exactly what goes in which car, what gets left behind if we can only take one car, 5 different evacuation routes, and strategic places picked to find shelter if we have to run.

I’m ready and have everything that is important to me.

It also becomes very clear that she is different from me, I struggle to understand why she is asking if we can take her favorite dishes, the fabric art she bought off the internet, the salad tongs she got for xmas… I start to make jokes and I can see her face and energy change.

For her, these things are important, I mean I’m sure that my daughter and I and the animals are important for her too, but for her, these are her important things! She has been curating our home for years, making it just right, making it look like something out of a design magazine. Every piece, every coffee table book, every crystal on the shelf has been painstakingly selected and placed in a way that makes our home feel like home.

She has invested a LOT of emotional energy into the “things” we have and me making light of it is NOT helping her, and not helping us.

I realize I am faced with the opportunity to show up differently, to not make light of what she has so much energy invested in, to let her know that while I may give her some grief and say no to some things, I am here to do what I can to protect what she holds dear.

I suggest that we have an hour or so before we may have to evacuate, that I’m ready and if she can give me some big bags I can run those up to the office far from the fire where they will be safe.

She doesn’t say it then, but I can see that it makes a difference, it takes a load of stress off her emotional plate.

I realize that growing up with a “prepper” has prepared me to be calm in this storm and with that calm, I am in a position to make sure that I can find ways to help bring this calm to my family.

Over the next week I find that not all couples are seeing this the same way, I hear one expressing worry that her husband only grabbed her stuff and none of his, she is worried and upset that he left his stuff in favor of getting hers. I know he doesn’t care, for him, like me, its just clothes. Even the favorite sweater is just clothes that can be replaced.

This story is as much about the benefits of being prepared as it is about my own non-attachment to the material things in my life. Maybe more importantly this story is about realizing that just because I am not worried about the “stuff”, the person I love is and it takes very little of my own energy to give her the extra help she needs to feel safe.

To those who lost everything, this is not a story of how I saved mine, but how I realized that the people in my life are more important than any belongings. I hope if you are reading this you can take a moment to give thanks for the lives that made it thru, the people that showed up to support each other, and the opportunity to give gratitude for what is, even in the wake of what was lost.

If you and your partner are struggling to see each others needs thru this, take a minute to look them in the eye, remember why they are in your life, and see if you can find a little levity for the differences that make you the team that you are.

And if you can, take the challenge to post or DM me the most rediculous thing you took when you evacuated. The list so far of rediculous items my friends took when they were running from disaster:

Salad tongs, ones that are so rediculous that the handle is so big and falls out of the bowl every time you try to use them
Weed, one friend made sure to take all the weed in the house, but nothing else
Doggie Toothpaste (and snowboard)
Melody Gardot LP & Chocolate
Tennis racket
Baseball cards (this one doesn’t seem that silly 🙂
“random shit”

Help me keep the list growing, it has helped to have something to laugh about in the midst of all of this disaster!

—

This post was previously published on medium.com.

***