It is impossible to think I started this blog so long ago and do so little writing in it. I am a self-confessed 'starter but non finisher' of tasks, especially tasks like writing journals or blogging. I have two blogs. I had been planning to start a third to chronicle my teaching career and may still do that (my teaching career is still new - only 6 months old) so it may still be salvagable, but as a first year teacher I *know* that it's been so hectic I probably wouldn't have kept that up either.
My last post was in Jan, when life was pretty normal...I had just received notice of a job and was waiting for my teacher registration to come in...then I spent a relatively normal month hanging out with my kids on the school holidays.
On 4 Feb I started my new job...it was a Friday. I came home from work exhilerated but exhausted, looking forward to movie night with my kids. The weather was wet, the rain was falling sideways and N (9) and G (11) and I went outside to play in it, but it was cold too so we came indoors, made some hot chocolate and got warm. I ordered pizza, picked up O (4), picked up the pizza arrived home to find Doug had brought me flowers to celebrate my first day in my new career. We are watching our movie as a family, munching on some pizza and the rain becomes torrential, smashing against the windows.
The power went out (this happens in storms, no biggie) so Doug goes outside and flips off the transformer cause that's the kind of man he is (worried that a surge when it comes back on will fry the electrics.) We are just talking about finding the candles, because it's not yet dark, when the light fixtures start dripping water onto the wedding photos on the coffee table. I go to get a towel from the bathroom while Doug goes to get a pot and as I walk by N's room am shocked to see his light downlights are not dripping, they are pouring water onto the floor and bed like a tap. Oh hell!
Run around like a maniac, pick up the bed, pots under drips, then note our bedroom light is also dripping, though slowly. I say to N, "it looks like you'll be sleeping in G's room tonight, head over to S&S's house and ask to borrow their air mattress. I take a minute to light a candle and go to the loo and while I am sitting there I hear this *pwoofing* sound...sort of like the sound you hear if you drop a big paperback book (big as in wide and long pages but not thick so that it bangs) and as it hits the carpet you hear this whooshing sound as the air escapes from underneath, but louder...I go to see what the kids have done now in the dark, only to find the whooshing sound of air was not from a book, but from the plasterboard of N's ceiling hitting the carpet...his entire ceiling collapsed.
Cue panic...actually cue "get the kids safely out of the house". I ring Steve and tell him to keep N there, I go with G and O to pack up a bag and sleeping bags to take to Soph and Steve's (our best friends who luckily last year bought the house 4 doors down from us. As we are walking through the dining area (open plan living), the entire loungeroom ceiling collapses, taking part of the kitchen ceiling with it...as we were under it when it collapsed and barely got out of the way in time I was in survival mode...passed both kids over the kitchen bench to Doug and got out of there. I can' t remember who I was on the phone with at which times, but we spent the night at Neisha's, then moved in with Soph and Steve until insurance could sort us out...which took 4 months. By some miracle, Doug thought to move the car out of the garage, because low and behold, when we came back to the house later the garage ceiling had also collapsed.
Most of our other friends and colleagues, and most of Sophie's and Steve's friends and colleagues did the "I don't know how you can bear living with friends, (or having friends live with you, depending on which side of the friendship you are on) it must be so hard." And it was hard, for both families, but we got through it, we don't hate each other (though I have noticed we've kept a healthy distance from each other since we moved back into our place a few weeks ago, just to recover and readjust and because we love each other and are closer in some ways because of the situation.
My own personal experience was hard for me to live with. I am not used to having to look out for me and to not have time or energy to help others when they need it. But with trying to keep body and soul together living in someone else's home, dealing with what had happened to our own house, starting a new job different to anything I had ever done before, the kids starting back at school etc I just didn't have any energy for that...almost 5 months later I still don't feel that I have that energy for self-recovery let alone supporting others around me, but the eternal optimist in me says I do and I will...someday soon.
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