I’ve written a lot of posts lately about being bored. My life doesn’t have a lot going on and there isn’t a lot of variety in my days. I will repeat that I am very lucky that I am safe and healthy, but being lucky doesn’t always make me feel better when I feel isolated on my own little planet staying inside my house when it seems like so many people are out living their lives (but I also know that the people out there aren’t always doing the safest thing).
I was talking to a friend the other day about how I just needed something different to happen. I wanted something to be able to focus on that wasn’t what I have been paying attention to for months. And I guess I did get that yesterday morning.
It’s not weird for me to wake up in the middle of the night. Sometimes it’s due to pain and sometimes it’s just general insomnia. I usually take a look at what time it is to see if it’s worth going back to bed or not (if it’s within 30 minutes of when I wake up, I don’t go back to sleep). This doesn’t happen every night, but it’s often enough that I don’t think twice about when it happens. So on Thursday morning, when I woke up around 4:30 am I wasn’t too worried. I took a look at the time, realized there was more than enough time for me to get more sleep, and tried to go back to sleep. And then, we had an earthquake.
Whenever there is an earthquake, I immediately freeze and try to take cover or protect myself somehow. Since I was in bed, I curled into a ball and put my pillows over my head. There isn’t anything next to my bed that could tip and hit me, but if it was a strong enough earthquake, I’m sure something could be thrown around and hit me. And while it’s ideal to be under a piece of furniture, for me to do that I would have to run through my house, which is a very stupid thing to do in an earthquake. So protecting my head with pillows is the best option if an earthquake happens when I’m in bed.
Fortunately, this earthquake wasn’t too bad for me. It was a long rumble and things were shaking a lot (and my windows were shaking so loud), but it didn’t jolt my floor around too much. There was an earthquake while I was sleeping years ago that made my mattress slide off of my box spring. This one wasn’t like that, but it still was an earthquake.
After the shaking stopped, I was wide awake and of course, I wanted to see what funny things people were posting on Twitter (earthquake Twitter is a real thing). And a few minutes after that first earthquake, another one happened, but this was a bit lighter than the first. It turned out the earthquake was a pretty decent size, but it had an epicenter in the valley so it wasn’t that close to me. But a lot of my friends felt it a lot stronger than I did and I’m glad that everyone was ok. And there were some silly jokes on Twitter about how this really fits the theme of this year or how we don’t need a natural disaster and a pandemic at the same time.
I wanted to get back to sleep because I knew I needed more sleep, but I was just too awake at that point. I didn’t get up to start my day because I was hoping at some point I would fall asleep, so I just stayed in my bed and tried to relax. I wasn’t jumpy or scared there would be another or a bigger earthquake, but it did make me think a bit about my earthquake kit. I do have a backpack with all the big supplies I would need in a natural disaster. And I’m almost more prepared than normal because I have extra food in my house. When the pandemic started, I made sure to buy shelf-stable foods in case there was a time I couldn’t get groceries for one reason or another. So I have that food plus the emergency food in my earthquake kit now.
After laying in bed awake for a few hours, it was almost time to get up for my day. And then another earthquake hit. This was a little lighter than the first one but a bit stronger than the second. I know these quakes could be foreshocks for a bigger one, but I’m hoping they were a small main quake and the two after it were the aftershocks. I follow Dr. Lucy Jones, a famous seismologist, on Twitter and she said these quakes are normal and just mean we live somewhere that there are earthquakes. That’s a bit reassuring. I haven’t felt another earthquake since those 3 in the morning, so they might be done. Or at least they might be so small now that I can’t feel them anymore.
I did end up spending most of Thursday tired since I didn’t get a lot of sleep, but at least I didn’t have much I had to do. I had my hour of work and then everything else wasn’t that important. So I took it easy and didn’t do anything too stressful or strenuous. I’m glad I didn’t have a lot I needed to do. Then again, I never seem to have a lot to do these days. But at least having some earthquakes in the morning did give me the variety I’ve been saying I wanted. I should have just been more specific that I wanted some variety that was fun and not a natural disaster. But I guess beggars can’t be choosers.
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