It's been two months
Apr. 22nd, 2011 12:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rumpelsnorcackIt's been 2 months – and 8 months. Life is a weird mix of memories right now. There's the old life, the one I had up until September 3rd. That life was good and I took things for granted – things like the solidity of the earth under my feet, that life would go on much as I had planned, that the city I lived in was safe and that while I could expect an earthquake 'one day' it would be relatively distant. I was complacent. It was easy to brush off disasters in other places, not that I was unsympathetic. I was. I read about them, I donated money to the Red Cross, and I felt sad about what was happening. Then things would move on and each disaster would fade into memory. If I thought about it in any depth I thought of them as one-off events, things that happened then stopped happening and people picked up the pieces and recovered. I knew there were magnitudes and aftershocks, I'd even heard of liquefaction thanks to a documentary on the Kobe earthquake in Japan. What I didn't realise was how relentless living with a disaster is. That changed, of course, in September.
In September came the other old life, the pre-February one. At the time it felt like a horrible, terrible new reality that sucked all joy out of life and left pain and sadness and destruction in its wake. It took months of living the new normal to give in and accept it, to accept that the city was broken and have hope for its renewal. It took months before I was able to dust myself off and say 'you know what? It's time to live again and look at this as a possibility' and I was happy again. I was less complacent about getting around to things 'one day' – took the bull by the horns and got out and about and started to really explore, but I had got more complacent about aftershocks and what they meant. Even the damage done by the one on Boxing Day didn't wake me up. We'd lived through thousands of the things, we'd got a small amount of damage again – there was no way that after six months that anything would change. I'd settled, somewhat cosily, into the so-called 'new normal' and it felt like life was on track again. It wasn't the life I'd envisaged before September, but it was pretty good.
Then came February 22nd – and now there's a new life. Compared to this life the immediate post-September life was easy. This time it feels so much worse. I'd be fascinated to know how it would have felt if this had been the only one because part of what was so hard about this one was it destroyed the sense of healing, recovery, moving on and acceptance I'd painfully managed to drag myself to after September. That was an extra hurdle on top of the fact that I'm now directly affected – not as badly as many people, not even as badly as some of my close friends, but affected. It's hard to come to grips with the enormity of what's going on in the city when just taking a trip down the road is fraught, when so much in my local community is damaged. I assume things will get better (after all, they did after September) but right now I still live day to day. Ironically, pre-September I lived day to day as well, but the contrasts between those two times is so huge. What I actually miss most is the time from January to the quake in February – I had been shaken out of complacency and was actually living, properly living, for once. Now, I'm still in existence mode – I exist and that's about all I have the energy to do.
It will get better; it has to – in a way it already has. The roads are slowly healing, the cordons are slowly shrinking and people are ever-so-slowly starting to perk up. There is humour coming out finally. It's taken longer this time for so many reasons – but it's coming out. I had a stupid, crazy, ridiculous yet hilarious conversation with a bunch of people on twitter last night. It was almost like the 'other old' again when we used to make fun of the quakes to have some sort of ownership of them rather than letting them own us, and I'm looking forward to that becoming the norm again. Maybe then we'll get back to where we were before and we can move on. Let's hope the next month brings much more of that sort of thing. I'd like the next monthly update to be happier.
In September came the other old life, the pre-February one. At the time it felt like a horrible, terrible new reality that sucked all joy out of life and left pain and sadness and destruction in its wake. It took months of living the new normal to give in and accept it, to accept that the city was broken and have hope for its renewal. It took months before I was able to dust myself off and say 'you know what? It's time to live again and look at this as a possibility' and I was happy again. I was less complacent about getting around to things 'one day' – took the bull by the horns and got out and about and started to really explore, but I had got more complacent about aftershocks and what they meant. Even the damage done by the one on Boxing Day didn't wake me up. We'd lived through thousands of the things, we'd got a small amount of damage again – there was no way that after six months that anything would change. I'd settled, somewhat cosily, into the so-called 'new normal' and it felt like life was on track again. It wasn't the life I'd envisaged before September, but it was pretty good.
Then came February 22nd – and now there's a new life. Compared to this life the immediate post-September life was easy. This time it feels so much worse. I'd be fascinated to know how it would have felt if this had been the only one because part of what was so hard about this one was it destroyed the sense of healing, recovery, moving on and acceptance I'd painfully managed to drag myself to after September. That was an extra hurdle on top of the fact that I'm now directly affected – not as badly as many people, not even as badly as some of my close friends, but affected. It's hard to come to grips with the enormity of what's going on in the city when just taking a trip down the road is fraught, when so much in my local community is damaged. I assume things will get better (after all, they did after September) but right now I still live day to day. Ironically, pre-September I lived day to day as well, but the contrasts between those two times is so huge. What I actually miss most is the time from January to the quake in February – I had been shaken out of complacency and was actually living, properly living, for once. Now, I'm still in existence mode – I exist and that's about all I have the energy to do.
It will get better; it has to – in a way it already has. The roads are slowly healing, the cordons are slowly shrinking and people are ever-so-slowly starting to perk up. There is humour coming out finally. It's taken longer this time for so many reasons – but it's coming out. I had a stupid, crazy, ridiculous yet hilarious conversation with a bunch of people on twitter last night. It was almost like the 'other old' again when we used to make fun of the quakes to have some sort of ownership of them rather than letting them own us, and I'm looking forward to that becoming the norm again. Maybe then we'll get back to where we were before and we can move on. Let's hope the next month brings much more of that sort of thing. I'd like the next monthly update to be happier.
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(no subject)
Date: 2011-04-21 01:06 pm (UTC)I have to say though, that I really admire your grace and courage through all this. You have stayed strong for your children, you have supported your community, you've lived through the constant barrage of aftershocks and damage, survived the unrest of changes/damage at your local school, faced the worst of the damage that you can see in the CBD. And yet through it all I have never seen you give up. Yes, you've had bad days and rough patches - I'd be surprised if you didn't - but you remain faithfully determined to see your city thrive again. You become outraged on the behalf of other people within your community who have it worse than you when decisions are made that will make their lives more difficult. You grieve the loss of every familiar building or business that has been forced to come down. In short, it's become very clear to me that you LOVE your city very much and that you will be there for it through the rebuilding process. Your determination to see your city thrive again is an inspiration. So many people in your shoes would have given up by now and either run away or completely withdrawn from the world. You haven't. Your resolve has continued and I respect and admire you so much for that. Your children are very fortunate to have a mother who will lead them by such a powerful example.
*hugs*
(no subject)
Date: 2011-04-21 10:37 pm (UTC)I do love this city and I am passionate about rebuilding it and making sure that rebuild honours what we had before. That keeps me here and my kids keep me going. We will get through this.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-04-21 09:38 pm (UTC)*HUGE HUGS*
(no subject)
Date: 2011-04-21 10:41 pm (UTC)I don't know about my reflections necessarily, but I think a book of reflections from all over the city would be good. There are so many people with so many voices out there writing out their own thoughts, and I think bringing them together would be really cool. It would be an extremely big book though :D