When being paranoid is a good thing

I am a very paranoid person. In my life, I always think about the worst case scenario, especially if I am faced with the unknown situation. Very often my other half think that my paranoia is excessive and very disturbing. He can't understand why I am like that. He finds it really unnessary to be so paranoid about everything.

But to me, my paranoia really helped me to prepare myself especially on Wednesday night when the first typhoon of the year, typhoon Conson (or Basyang in Philippines) made a surprised landfall and directly hit the area I live. Many people were not prepared as the earlier track shown that it would not hit our area directly and the warning signal given was only signal no. 1.

When my husband informed me on Wednesday morning that there was a typhoon heading our way, I made sure all the emergency survival kits were within our reach and ready to be used anytime. My emergency light and torchlights were fully charged, my candles and matches were ready too. I also have full stock of emergency food. The last year typhoon experiences have taught me never to underestimate the power of a typhoon.

On that day, we didn't see the sun at all the whole day. It was very dark, wet, and cold. But since no one expected to be a direct hit, life went by as usual. Tree branches were not cut, and I even got my new satelite disc installed :)

At 11pm when everyone was already asleep, the wind has become very very strong. I haven't been able to close my eyes since 9pm when I put my kids to sleep. My six sense telling me that the typhoon was going to stop by our area. I started to feel scared and nervous especially when I saw the tree in front of my house swaying violently left and right. The sound of the strong wind pierced my ears. I had a strong urge of checking the typhoon path at www.typhoon2000.ph and when I did, I was so surprised to see that the typhoon was heading directly to our province and at 2am, it would make a landfall with strong wind and rain.

Oh my God! I was paranoid again. I was afraid that my emergency preparation was not enough. I quickly woke up my husband to get ready the emergency light. But he was too sleepy to care about my paranoia. So he just continued sleeping. I got up and went down to get my emergency light. I put all candles and matches on the table, and I even had time to update my status on Facebook informing everyone that Conson was here already. Just when I completed everything, the electricity went off. I opened the curtain in my bedroom so I could see the situation outside. And it was getting worse with the wind blowing so hard. Never in my life I saw how strong the wind blew it could bend the big mahogany tree in front of my house. But that night I saw it happened in front of my eyes. I was very scared my heart bumping so hard too. I was afraid that the mahogany tree root would loose its grip and the tree would fall to my house. I literary screamed everytime the strong wind came and swept away everything outside my window. My husband woke up and asked me to close the curtain and return to sleep.There's no way I would be able to sleep in a complete darkness knowing that outside, a violent wind swept accross our region. Then at nearly midnight, I received a text from my neighbor informing me that the warning signal has been raised to signal no. 2 and there would not be any classes on Thursday. So my son would not go to school.

Just before 2am, the rain came down together with the strong wind. I never stopped praying asking protection from God the Almighty for my little family that I love so much. The rain and wind, plus many mahogany fruits that dropped down on my roof made so much noise. My son and my daughter woke up, screamed, and cried because they were frightened by the darkness and by the sound of the wind. My husband hugged and comforted my son while I sat down rocking back and forth to comfort my daughter who held my shirt so tightly. I tried to sing for her but my weak heart didn't even want to stop thundering. My daughter could feel it and she got even more frightened. With all my might I tried to calm myself down so that my daughter would not feel how scared I was with the situation. My daughter and my son finally went back to sleep. Not long, my husband also snored; but not me :( Although my eyes were extremely heavy, my mind didn't want to rest. I prayed and prayed that the typhoon would be over soon. But it worsened instead. I stood up near the window and tried to see the situation outside but I could not see a thing. The rain and wind blurred my vision. I gave up and tried to sleep. I kept on teeling myself that God never leaves me alone. He is always there at the right time and on the right moment according to Him.

Finally at around 3-4am, there was no sound outside my window. Everything went quiet as if nothing had happened before. I knew the typhoon has gone away. I closed my eyes at around 4.30am just when I heard my maid got out of the house. She told me that my neighbor wanted to borrow our candle and matches because they had none.I managed to sleep for 2 hours before my children woke me up at around 6am.

When I woke up, I saw the road in front of my house was in a mess. Tree branches and mahogany fruits scattered everywhere. I also saw everyone started to clean up the mess created by the typhoon. The black out continued the whole day. We were forced to finish 2 litres of ice cream that has melted and to cook all the chicken, meat and fishes. The electricity was restored at around 10pm. I really thanked the Lord for protecting us always. I thank Lord for I am so paranoid about anything and this makes me prepared always.