Thoughts

I have no idea where this post is going to go... but I have a few things on my mind and I figure sharing them will let me see them in a different light, but maybe whoever reads this can share their opinion and give me a new perspective.

I'll start with the most annoying thing swirling around my head. Last night while I was delivering food to the rescue workers (and I really was not trying to listen into any conversations - what they talk about is none of my business and I am very aware of that - we were in a priviledged position being at the headquarters and I tried to just get-in-and-get-out) I overhead a kiwi Civil Defense worker say "the city is back to normal... this is just political "nonsense" this is a waste of time". Umm what? Is the rest of the city (excluding the CBD) really back to normal? I am refusing to watch TV because it is too upsetting but I don't think this is right. Sure there are some shops open (not malls, just supermarkets), and 60% of the city has water again, but that doesn't mean we are back to normal. Having a house to live in is great, but life isn't back to normal. Today is Friday and I am supposed to be having a day off work for mid-term break (gotta love working at Westmount!) and I had all kinds of things planned, but I can't do any of them. I can't even do laundry. My friends in the eastern suburbs are digging their cars out of the silt and making trips back to their houses to get a few belongings... that's not normal either. What is normal is knowing that when you go to bed at night you don't have to have shoes and a jacket beside the bed. It's knowing that your children can go to school. It's having a husband that has a job to go to where he does what he is trained for - instead of directing traffic and answering questions about how safe it is to be in the building. Normal is making cell phone calls, and drinking tap water straight out of the tap. It is not sleeping in your Nana's jewellery because you can't risk having it flung around the room or buried under rubble, because it is all you have left from "before". It's not parking your car in the street because the garage is likely to collapse in the next aftershock, and you can't park in the driveway because the brick firewall is a total hazard.
Normal is also not living with the constant noise of helicopters overhead, and sirens wailing.

And what is more, I really want to go for a run but I can't because my favourite running track is kaput and if I leave the house the kids will worry. I also can't have a shower or wash my running clothes, and the streets around my house are all broken up and/or covered in liquifaction silt.

What I heard has made me sad. It made me realise that while things will probably look semi-normal on the outside soon (not in the CBD however, that will never be the same again), nothing will ever be the same again. I will never take it for granted that I am safe in a non-wood building for one thing.