I was making dinner for my three kids, all under the age of ten, one strangely warm December evening when the tornado hit our rural Pennsylvania property. Less than sixty seconds prior, my dad, who lived an hour east in New Jersey had called, “Hey do you know you guys have a tornado warning?”

“Really?” I asked, half-listening, as I wrestled a child into the kitchen. I turned on the TV, and a red warning scrolled across the bottom. Dad was right. But I lived at the base of the Appalachians, surrounded by woods, and so I said thanks, hung up the phone, and tried to wrestle two more children to the dinner table.

And then it hit. In an instant, the wind ramped up to a decibel I had never heard before or since–that racing train sound people who live through tornados describe. The windows rattled in their frames as the train surrounded our home. The power went out. The roaring was so loud I couldn’t tell if it was raining, thundering, or just wind. I wrestled three clueless children to a doorway, and then to the bathroom when it sounded like our roof was going to be ripped off.

And then just as suddenly as it started, it stopped. It was pitch black outside so I didn’t see the damage fully until the next day. A small barn in the road, trees blocked all access to our house, all the tall pines in our yard snapped in half, and an obvious pathway in the wooded acres between my house and the neighbors’ was left behind in its wake.

Thus began my obsession with tracking weather.

I’ve always loved storms, and I have survived several hair-raising ones in addition to this one which was probably a derecho rather than a tornado, but is just as terrifying–and potentially damaging– to witness. Hurricane Gloria in the 80’s and Hurricane Sandy in 2012 were two scary ones that I experienced when living in New Jersey, and a lot of floods in between because I always lived close to the Delaware River. Once my house was struck by lightning, only saved by an actual antique lightning rod, but that blew up all our appliances and even a glass globe on the ceiling light above my bed. And we’ve been wallopped here in West Virginia a few times over the last couple months. Our woods is starting to look like a game of pick-up sticks.

There’s something so riveting about the intensity and uncertainty and beauty of these storms that I hate when I miss them. I was maybe a storm chaser in a different life but in this one, I enjoy tracking them from the comfort of my home, preferably while not losing power and listening to trees crashing down as we experienced, once again, this week. Trees once again blocking access or escape, but fortunately didn’t hit our house, or cars, or other buildings we have on our property. It was sort of being in a little dome of protection, but at this rate, we wonder how long that will last.

It is all a very obvious and worn out metaphor for life, but one that resonates with me a great deal.

I am used to chaos. Crisis. Fear of destruction. I am used to problem solving and acting fast in an emergency. I’m used to staying calm in the face of, well, anything. I am used to storms. And I’m starting to wonder if I even know of any other way to live. Would I be bored if not for the storms of life and nature? What would I do with myself if I had no fear of the future, be it a health diagnosis or the financial wolf at the door or watching a storm cell turn red on my radar app as it approaches my house? Would I self-destruct if I wasn’t so busy worrying about other people and picking up the debris of whatever disaster we’re dealing with at any given time?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately because I am yet to secure financial independence and it feels like a major failure at my age. I know that sounds tangential, but sometimes I wonder–did I do this to myself? Have I perpetuated this storm of unstable finances as a way to keep myself in that adrenaline ridden, crisis state? Talk about self-destruction.

The reality is much more nuanced and complicated, and my current situation of needing the flexibility to help my husband, but also to be able to keep up with many responsibilities outside a “job”. Why do we live like this in the US? We work to live and live to work. It’s ridiculous. The security of a well-paying single job dangles in front of me like a rotten carrot, and I’m yet to grab it. Frankly it feels so far out of my grasp, I can’t even see it.

I don’t think about myself in a context of failing or succeeding often because I spend most of my energy on the idea of constant improvement regardless of either of those outcomes. Both propel me forward. I believe we are all capable of being better in character as we move through life’s failures and successes and so that’s where my focus usually is–on my internal okay-ness. But I will admit the money thing really, really bugs me. It’s a storm I want to stop tracking and put away for good, but I just cannot figure out how. I feel like I’m in the middle of that tornado all the time–the entire world spinning around me with no opportunity for me to step into it.

We just finished Season Four of The Bear, and as this season wrapped they dove into this idea deeper. Spoiler Alert. While the watchers have seen for a while now that Carmen thinks he thrives in chaos, Carmen finally sees that now too. He finally realizes–through seeing his colleague Sidney–that one can be highly creative, successful, AND put together and kind. And although Sid doesn’t feel like she’s all that together, it’s mostly the lack of opportunity that has made her feel that way, not her own internal makeup. Given the opportunity, she will show everyone what she’s made of. And I’m sure that’s where Season Five will go.

But man, I feel Carmen. Deeply. I too was raised in a sometimes volatile and chaotic home (also half Italian), and have moved through life at times like a steamroller taking down everyone in my path and others like I’m being dragged behind the steamroller. And in those in between moments when things are quiet, calm, normal–that’s when it feels like something is wrong. I wait for the other shoe, it inevitably drops and off I go on my mission.

Maybe my career should have been first responder.

In the last decade or so, I think I have found much more of a balance, at least emotionally. But after years of this kind of living, raising kids, patchworking a dozen gigs, moving constantly, I have no financial security. And today's storms are not caused by me steamrolling anyone or anything, they are just life. Just when I’m at an age where I’m ready to accept some calm, I’m not granted it.

I feel like I’m writing to save my life sometimes. Even while I know it could be fruitless, it’s all I have. I’m not getting a promotion that makes sense, I’m not landing a salaried position, and I don’t even see any opportunities anymore. This storm is not going to suddenly end to let the sun peek out from behind the clouds. Like Carmen, I create pretty damn well under pressure. But I don’t want to anymore.

I know a young family who comes from a ridiculous amount of money. The mother, who I’ve known since she was a child, has never wanted for anything (materially) in her life. She went to college for art and now spends her time raising her kids and painting. Sometimes I think–how unfair is this? I’d be surprised if she’s ever even had a job. But after I’m done comparing our very different lives, and feeling sorry for myself, I have to face the truth: If I had money like that what would I choose to do?

I’d choose the same. Step out of the storm and create.