It’s been a year since the Great Quakes. San Andres fault line really shook us up, then tore us down. The ground split and swallowed cities, men, women, and children all alike. It swallowed them whole and grumbled after as if satisfied.

I was lucky to be someone who survived and lived so close to it. Lucky to live, lucky to lose, everything. My mom and I had driven out to a prospective college when it happened we were just far enough to feel the Earth roll and see trees fall, but not to fall in or be crushed.

There was a moment where we looked and panicked then with shaky hands we called everyone we knew. Then at the end of our contacts list my mother fell to floor and cried. I just kept calling and calling everyone from my area with no responses. As if everyone with my area code no longer existed, twilight zone moment.

My aunt survived. Just one. She lives in Arizona so she was alive and well. Well is a stretch, but alive. She had offered to take us in and she did. She said it’s better for us to be away and not see the wreckage. She always kept the tv off to make sure.

My mother no longer functioned as we do. She had just shut down from too much grief at once. I barely see her now, she stays in her room. My aunt says it’s better that way, better not to see her so lost. She might bring me there. It might be contagious.

I hear there are repairs being done on the fault. But why? Our world is too far gone I think. We destroyed it, digging too many holes in the ground, poisoning our water, contaminating our air. So now I think we made our bed let’s lie in it. Pessimistic maybe. Realistic more likely.

I never did end up going to that college. It seems so futile now, in the face of all the death I ‘luckily’ avoided. It gives you some perspective about what truly matters, nothing. Or at least not college.

Once I did catch the news on, I saw the giant crater in the area I used to live. The bottom of the new canyon was blurred out, splotches of red and brown and yellow, little square shapes I can only assume to be houses or buildings. They show the new coast of California, because the old one sank. Sometimes I’m grateful, thank God I didn’t drown.

There are no earthquakes in Arizona so far. Just dust storms, dry lighting, and harsh wind. I spend most of my time inside, due to the harsh conditions. I like to just remember people, go through my old messages. My aunt wants me to be better, she wants me to start up applications again, meet new people. A boy perhaps, any boy will get you out of this funk, she says. I don’t think she understands how grief works.

Just once I went on a blind date, for her. I started crying before the food came. I had a boyfriend before. The Earth swallowed him, divine intervention maybe. The man paid for our drinks walked me out and to my car, then left. Unsurprisingly there was no second date. Or second first dates.

On the news it said that almost all Californian residents are simultaneously struggling through PTSD research states. I wonder why, we aren’t dead we should feel invincible. We should feel lucky and be adrenaline junkies, but we aren’t. We are sad little shells unable to pick up all the pieces so soon, lacking a large chunk of our home and our support systems.

It has only been a year though. Maybe 2020 will be better. Perhaps it’s time to hope.