Remembering Christchurch Two Years Later

  I intended to mark the day by doing something special to remind myself how good life is. I had several ideas all involving spoiling myself. But, then I remembered the 189 who were not so lucky and it seemed a bit shameful to celebrate.

 

  I've always been a lucky person. I don't win lotteries or raffle drawings but I have a good life, good friends, a great marriage and amazing kids. However, escaping totally unscathed from the earthquake on February 22, 2011 was just plain luck. I don't believe in a higher power and don't think that "God" was watching over me, I was simply in a little pocket of safety in a sea of destruction. I was lucky.

 

  So today I am not marking the day in any special way except to hug my kids a little longer, tell my husband I love him a little more often and just enjoy this crazy trip that is life. I am grateful that I no longer have hives or nightmares, I don't jump out of my skin when I hear loud noises and I no longer check on geonet.org upon waking. I am even beginning to miss New Zealand a bit. I still don't really ever want to go back but at least I don't feel resentful about having to have to live there for 16 months after the quake. I still keep the newspaper articles from the day after and I still get freaked out about all the people who were killed in places that I had been in just moments before and I feel sad for them and their families. I never really thought "what if", I don't think that's productive, but I do think "Whoa, be grateful Amy" and  I am.

Where have I been for 3 months?

I can't believe it has been three months since my last blog post. I even had to reset my Google password since I couldn't remember it. Shocking. I've been reading everyone else's blogs, just not writing any. I've been a tad busy and by the time I sit down (when I get to sit down), I'm too exhausted to do anything other than read.

My boys and I left Wellington in July to start our 10 month sojourn in North Carolina while Daddy learns Hindi at FSI. Having lived in this little "pleasantville" for 9 months just before heading to FSI the first time, the kids loved it, made friends and wanted to return. Since we really didn't want our teenagers in DC schools we made NC our home. Plus, after the Christchurch earthquake, I got a touch of PTSD and bought a house off the Interweb that I had not even been inside. There was a lot of fixing up to do. I vowed to make the house livable while my husband was busting his hump at FSI.

I was able to sell my nursing cover business to a lady in New Zealand so this house is now my full time job. Thanks Claire, you basically paid to have my whole house decked out with new hard wood floors. Hope you like the business. Anyway, I've never worked so hard in my life. I'm no stranger to manual labor but my body protested most of the first and second week. I lost 5 lbs that first week too! My brother, my 15 year old son, Morgan, myself and 2 movers emptied the 26 ft moving van. It was a job I don't want to repeat any time soon. So now I don't look at it as work, it is my enforced exercise regime. My shoulders are becoming very defined from all of the painting and my legs are getting firm from running up and down the stairs a billion times a day. But, it is worth it.

Kitchen Before

After

I cannot take all the credit. My family helped. My amazing brother showed up even before the water or air conditioning was turned on to help make the house livable enough for me and the boys. He cleaned up and hauled away weeds & debris, built pathways and steps and painted a few of the worst rooms. He sanded all of the cabinetry so we could paint it too.

My Dad amazed me with his ability to fix ANYTHING!! He helped me disassemble all of the broken and nasty ceiling fans, cleaned them up, replaced a switch here, a motor & light there and voila...new, functional ceiling fans.

When the flooring guys cut the wrong sized hole for the air conditioning vents...no problem. Dad cut new ones and repositioned the sheet metal. But the big event was installing a new bathroom from scratch. We spent 7 hours at Lowe's the day before. Yes, that's not a typo-we were at Lowe's for 7 hours. The closest Lowe's is 30 miles away so we wanted to get everything we would need to work on the house for an entire week.

This is what we did in 3 days...amazing!

 After

We didn't have time to get to Adrian's study. My Dad had to get back to Florida and my brother left with him to attend to his own affairs. That left me and the boys. Yikes. I didn't want my husband to have a heart attack when he finally saw the house for the first time. The moldings all had to be painted, the doors needed scraping and painting....we worked furiously.

He loved it. After a day or two of jet lag recovery, Adrian jumped right in and we set to work on his study. Now he knows how hard we've all been working.

Study before

After

Everyone pitched in. I even had surprise help from one of Adrian's college buddies and his girlfriend who stopped by to help install trim. I never want to do that again by the way.

Ewan Painting a new doorway to the balcony.

Adrian on his second day home, painting his study

 Morgan getting all the high spots.

Me and Thom putting in the trim

Jenna cutting the trim-she loved it.

We will NEVER be finished fixing up this house but it is in good shape and we love it. The new appliances, bathrooms and paint really make a difference.

The best part is that it is within walking distance to grandma and grandpa and Ewan's buddy lives across the street. There is a bed and breakfast within walking distance and it's just a short stroll to downtown. So, when your car unexpectedly breaks down like it did this weekend, you can still walk your kid to soccer practice.

We are Home (for 10 months)



Don't tell us who is relevant to us

 A funny thing happens when you take a bunch of intelligent and capable men & women, throw them into a foreign country or situation and then unite them through the blogosphere. They write! They compare stories. They ask questions. They seek confirmation that the choices they’ve made for them and their families are good ones. They become girlfriends. .

This is how a woman in New Zealand becomes girlfriends with a woman in Benin, whom she has never met, may never meet, but feels bonded to.  This is how a woman, new to her brick and mortar community in America, can seek reassurance from her virtual community while undergoing a life altering change. We’ve adapted and carved out for ourselves a sense of belonging that all of us miss due to our nomadic lifestyle. So when one of our girlfriend's blogs was recently removed from the State Department's website for not being relevant enough after discussing her recent bout with breast cancer, we took offense

By sharing our experiences with each other, whether it’s finding cake mix in Mauritania or a good dentist in Dhaka, we can commiserate with each success or failure and not feel like it is only happening to us. Some of our stories have nothing specifically to do with the Foreign Service but are a result of our life in the Foreign Service.  Everyone living this lifestyle has different reasons for being in the Foreign Service. Some do it out of a sense of duty. Some do it for the adventure. Some do it because they are passionate about promoting America. And, some do it because they fell in love with someone who does it.  Our reasons are as varied as we are and we seek information from anywhere and everywhere we can get it. We need to know we are going into this with our eyes wide open.

We need to know how hard this lifestyle can be whether it’s a bombing, flooding, earthquake, illness or crime. We desperately need to know that our situation isn’t out of the ordinary and that what we are feeling is normal and that someone else has been through it and can help us. We need to know we are not alone even though we are living in a house in Africa with razor wire holding us in or on a small island with almost no diplomatic presence and our spouse works 60 hours a week.  Anyone considering this lifestyle should have access to real life stories, the good ones and bad ones uncensored.

We are all relevant.

Don't let them change you.

  I've been having a few "poor me" moments lately brought on by an inordinate amount of stress. Ilnesses, divorce (not mine), law suit, house renovation 9000 miles away, pack out, school transfers, etc. I am beginning to think that this high octane stress level is the new norm and will just have to get used to it. Most of it is beyond my control anyway.
  This lifestyle comes with a whole new set of little annoyances that you don't consider until you are overseas, and I'm in a first world country. Imagine what it's going to be like when I head to my first third world country! Something as simple as registering a car becomes a week long event involving countless emails, notaries and family members in country. Add to that, the fact that our Embassy here  in Wellington doesn't have a notary and it gets even more complicated. How can we NOT have a notary at the United States Embassy?
  I admit, I've let it get to me. I threw my hands up in despair and started thinking that I wasn't cut out for this. And then, the doubt crept in. Maybe I wasn't as awesome as I thought I was. Maybe people were talking behind my back, and saying that I wasn't good enough. Maybe I'm not smart enough or witty enough or pretty enough to be a diplomat's wife. I can set a table and cook the right food but what if I cannot hold up my end of a conversation? I even started to question the color of my hair. What if people think that I am trying to be too young by dying my hair? I was freaking out. WHAT WILL PEOPLE THINK??
  Then it hit me, or rather, my husband reminded me; it doesn't matter what anyone thinks except him and my boys. They think I am awesome. I don't know when this low self esteem thing started but I am pretty sure it began when we left North Carolina to head up to DC. How it happened doesn't matter. That it happened and. happened to ME, matters. I am uber-confident. I am the person who volunteers to speak in public and I will confront anyone if I feel I am being wronged. It is who I am, er, was. So this new weepy Amy was really getting on my nerves. I tried to blame it on the earthquake but this started way before February 22. Luckily, I have a very supportive husband who reminded me that I have very good instincts and every decision I make is usually the right one. The confidence I oozed was the main thing that attracted him to me. I just forgot.
So, I am getting back to normal. No more seeking advice or confirmation. I am in charge of my own life and how I want to live it. Except for where I live it, or the house I will be living in to live it or the color of the walls of the house I will live in, or the furniture  or the schools my children will go to, etc. Except for all of that, I am in charge.

The thing about street cred...

My husband wrote a funny blog yesterday about being from Glasgow. Apparently, being "from" Glasgow gives you serious street cred. I've only been to Glasgow once and it seemed ok, but apparently, back in the day, it used to be a scary place filled with dangerous street gangs and hooligans.

Now, my husband is a pretty refined guy on the surface. He is charming, has a wicked accent, devilish good looks and impeccable manners. But, I know another version. I've known him a long time and have seen him in every situation you can imagine and have never doubted his ability to take care of himself. To be honest, I can totally see his 14 year old self running amok through the streets of Glasgow with his mates, smoking cigarettes and throwing beer bottles at the drunks, earning his street cred.

This got me to thinking, though. What qualifies as street cred? I've lived in some shady places, but none that would be labeled as "gritty" or "dangerous" or even the wrong side of the tracks. Still, I think I am pretty street smart. I spent a large portion of my childhood in a small town 20 miles north of Philadelphia fending for myself. It wasn't totally derelict, but it wasn't as nice as Philly. I had some cousins from New Jersey. Now they had street cred. They actually scared me a little. They were older and would sit with my Dad and tell stories about their teen-age years in Philly and Moorestown (NJ) in the 60's (my Dad was really young when he had me). 

Some of these stories seemed unbelievable. One cousin talked about how annoying it was to live near the Burlington Bristol Bridge. They get "jumpers" you see, and they don't always make it into the water. Ugh. Gross. My Dad once told a story about how on his way to work one morning, he saw a severed arm in the street. He called the police to report it and they asked him if it was a left arm or right arm. Apparently, it does matter. The gangs send messages to their rivals, and a left arm means something totally different from a right arm.

I've been mugged once. That should give me some street cred. A naked man once asked me for directions when I was walking to my friend's house. I was only 7 or 8. I guess that qualifies my neighborhood as a bit dangerous, thus qualifying for street cred-ness. What do you have to do to get into this club? I was actually suspended from school in the 7th grade for fighting. Snap, that should get me lifetime membership right?

Now I have these two amazing boys who have never lived anywhere "tough" - unless you count the weather in South Dakota. They've never been harassed by the local druggie, beaten up by the local bully or brought home by the local cops. They've got no street cred. I still think that they would dominate in the Hunger Games, though. If you can get street cred just from "being" from somewhere then it doesn't really count. You have to "live it," baby.

Random acts of kindness

To say I've had a tumultuous month would be an understatement. My house renovation bills are escalating. I received a not so nice letter from the IRS. I am trying to organize pack outs, school enrollments with 3 different school curricula for 2 kids and generally feeling a bit overwhelmed. To top it off, the final payment for the house we sold a year ago, didn't come and doesn't seem likely to come for quite some time. Since it's not really my nature to sit around and feel sorry for myself, I just keep trudging along doing what I need to do to get things done. However, there wasn't a lot of joy running through my veins this morning when I hung up the phone with the people who aren't paying us.

Just then Ewan walked through the front door carrying a package. He spent the night at one of his friends' house. Daniel is a nice kid and his parents seemed pretty cool when we spent a few minutes chatting with them yesterday afternoon. They are actually from Malaysia, but have been in New Zealand for over 20 years. We spoke about our kids, the advantages of living in New Zealand as opposed to Malaysia and we tried to explain our crazy lifestyle to them. We laughed about the idiotic price of seafood in this country since everybody seems to be able to just walk over to the waterfront and pluck it out for free except us!

I was particularly animated about my outrage at the price of lobster. I mean really, it is shameful what they charge for lobster here. They explained that they charge so much locally because they get so much more for it when it is exported. Well that doesn't remedy the fact that I really like lobster on special occasions. But I refuse to pay $85 dollars for one. We giggled, exchanged pleasantries and said goodbye wishing that we had met them sooner because they seemed like really nice people.

So, back to Ewan and that mysterious package. You guessed it, it contained a fresh New Zealand lobster. I was gobsmacked. In that one instant two virtual strangers turned my ridiculously dismal morning into a bright shining moment that will be one of my best memories of New Zealand.

  Thank you Jeffrey and Evelyn. You'll do.

No, of course I'm not mad at you. Whatever.

 So I had to take Ewan to the doctor this morning. Yes, that doctor who wouldn't give me anti freak out medication after the earthquake. He's really a great doctor when it comes to determining what is wrong with you and he is very thorough. He explains everything and makes sure you leave with a clear understanding of what is wrong with you. I actually believe that he is one of the best doctors that I've been to.

This morning, after he diagnosed my son and prescribed physical therapy and a few blood tests he asked me if I was mad at him over the way he dealt with me after the earthquake. I thought about it and really wanted to say yes, I was a bit mad, but it has been a year. I am fine now and probably won't ever see him again so, I said no. I told him I wasn't mad, my ideas just differed from his. I am not a doctor but I am a grown up and I know my own body. I knew I needed more help than he was giving me but I was in a country where toughing it out is a badge of honor. How could I admit that I wasn't as strong? I wanted to be strong and prove that Americans are just as tough as Kiwis. We are brave and resourceful, we don't need drugs or therapy, we won our independence didn't we? I am a warrior.

He seemed relieved and asked me if I didn't feel better knowing I was able to heal myself without the aid of drugs? Actually, no. I didn't feel better doing it myself. It reminded me of when I lived in South Dakota and was in the process of giving birth to Ewan. My doctor and I discussed the pain relief options and I wanted an epidural. But, on delivery day she was trying to convince me that I didn't need it. I could do it naturally. Women have been having babies since the dawn of time without medication. I thought she was insane. I stood my ground and asked for the epidural. After 16 hours of labor, I was glad I insisted. What is this ridiculous need for people to show how tough they are?

So, no. I take it back. I was a bit mad and I am disappointed in myself for letting someone else dictate how I am supposed to feel instead of standing up for myself and demanding to be heard. Yes, I am proud of myself for being strong and making it through a tough situation but I regret that I was made to feel that asking for help was somehow wrong. I usually do a better job of standing up for myself.