Life is full of triggers.
Everyday I get sent back to the fire.
Everyday at some point I am back in the fight or flight mode.
Life is dangerous.
Love is dangerous.
Yet I also remember that I started moving when I could’ve stayed frozen in that moment.
I could’ve stayed still and prayed someone else would’ve helped me.
Instead I chose to move, I chose to find a way out.
I chose to pull myself and her out.
I chose to keep going.
Even when everything started to hurt physically, emotionally, mentally.
When the adrenaline started to wear off on that hospital bed and all I could hear was the echoing roaring flames and popping, the explosions.
And the beeping of the heart monitor skyrocketing.
The moment I saw my sister and the look on her face, I collapsed into her arms and she held me.
I broke down like never before,
In that moment I was vulnerable.
Exposed.
Yet all I felt was love and comfort.
Even to this day I call or my sister checks in and I know there’s a reason I moved.
There’s a reason every single doctor, police officer and firefighter kept telling me over and over that I did something.
I saved someone.
I moved quick and I did everything right.
My aunt telling me that she can’t wait to see how I use my “gift” for something good and great.
How everyone always told me before that my ADHD was something annoying or bad or that I will always be a bother.
I learned that it’s helpful.
I processed everything in my head,
Staying in that van and hoping someone else gets us,
Staying and just accepting that this is it.
Or moving.
“Gotta move. Gotta get us out. We gotta go home. How do we get home.”
In the end,
It was terrifying, it still haunts me.
The pictures and videos are nothing compared to how it was.
They don’t show exactly what it was.
The reality was so much worse.