Zara Potts: Shattered dreams as lovely city is ripped apart

Zara Potts. Photo / Supplied

Opinion

They told us how the quake hit them and their families. Now, five Cantabrians tell us how their lives have changed.

I had dreamed of returning home for more than a decade. In late January, I finally made the move from Auckland back to Christchurch.

The earthquake ensured my homecoming lasted a grand total of eight weeks.

In the days following the quake my world was turned sideways. There were many times when I simply had to stop what I was doing and weep.

Everybody seemed to be in a daze. Nobody seemed to be able to make any sort of decision - large or small.

I had to make a quick decision on my future and I had no idea what to do. I knew it was going to be difficult to stay in the city, as I wasn't able to buy a house and the future of my council job was in doubt. I wasn't even sure whether I would be able to ever face returning to the centre of the city.

In the end, simple economics forced the decision.

As if ripping a sticking plaster from a festering cut, I left my torn up city quickly. It was a wrench to pull myself out of her shattered bones and begin the drive from one end of the country to the other.

I felt treasonous leaving family and friends in the wreckage and I could not stop the tears as I drove away from the city that had nurtured me. I felt like a heartless child turning its back on a pleading parent.

When I returned to Auckland, I was amazed to find it was exactly as I had left it two months before. The motorways were still clogged with cars, people were still watering their lawns, shopping at supermarkets, drinking coffee and laughing in the sunshine.

Life here had gone on and I felt like a refugee in my own country.

I felt guilty for being hundreds of miles away in a city that was still upright. I did not have to fear a long night with no heat or light. I did not have to stock up on candles or waterproof matches or boil a bucket of water to fill a hot water bottle before I went to sleep. I had the luxury of a flushing toilet.

I bought a house the first weekend I arrived back. I was desperate for some stability. I was relieved to find I no longer had to sleep on the floor close to a door. I was not sleeping with a hand on a torch and an ear on the radio.

But this is what many of my loved ones were doing every night. And sometimes, I wished I were too.

I was lucky enough to be able to return to my old place of work, MIT. It was comforting and familiar when I walked through the gates into my building. A building that I still, even now, check for safe places should the earth shake again.

The earthquake shattered me. It took me apart, but in a strange way, it has put me back together in a better way.

I am kinder because of it. I am determined to live my life as fully as I possibly can. The terrible images in my head still remain, but I am finally able to sleep through the night without dreaming of buildings collapsing on me.

I still tremble when I am unexpectedly startled.

I still cannot bear to look at images of the fallen ChristChurch Cathedral without feeling a pain deep in my chest and I still cannot comprehend that the city where I grew up, the city that I adored, has now changed forever.

Its heart will never look the same again. It matches my own.