WRITTEN ON June 28th, 2009 BY kiwivera AND STORED IN bucklame, kiwiland, life

Tags: auckland, expat, life, love

i’m not trying to come out as a relationships expert (trust me - i’m not!) but i was thinking about my life here in auckland and had this metaphor in my head. it might be just me and my particular experience as an expat (i hate this word but i think i hate the word emigrant even more so it’ll have to do) and the several stages i’ve been going through over the last year or so.

when i first visited auckland (for about 3 months), everything about it was perfect and i just wanted to give it every little bit of my attention. i had my camera in hand at all times and would take the silliest photos of everything (bus stops, rubbish bins, phone booths, road signs, etc) just because they were different from home and, therefore, better. plus, i had a return ticket and knew i’d be away from it fairly soon so wanted to make sure i wouldn’t miss it.

i was going to leave it so i didn’t take it for granted.

a few months later, i bought a one-way ticket to auckland - that meant i still loved it. subconsciously, since i had given it such evidence of my undying love, i didn’t need to do anything else. our relationship was established and we were fully committed to each other. so the camera started spending its days in the bag. there was still a lot to photograph but what was the point? i wasn’t going to be away from it so why would i need still pictures of what i could see every day?

looking back, i think even the way i referred to it changed. there was no sweetness in the word auckland anymore. it wasn’t the place where i’d come to explore as a tourist. it wasn’t exotic and different anymore. it was the city where i was simply breathing and eating and sleeping and - this one was a killer! - working. it was home.

plus, i’d seen all the attractions. there’s not that many of them, in auckland (see, i wouldn’t have said this in the beginning!). museum? check. art gallery? check. sky tower? check. rangitoto? check. check. check. we’d gone in all romantic dates. we were done.

it’s been over a year now. we know each other well so i hardly ever remember to take photos of it. we don’t really have romantic dates anymore because we’ve seen everything together. i know that the city is here everyday when i wake up in the morning and it’s up to me, not to it, to decide when we stop seeing each other.

the city has seen me feeling happy, sad, sick and healthy and i’ve seen it in all seasons. all of a sudden, i’m not just thinking about it in a touristic sense (when the next art exhibit will open or what farmer’s market i’ll want to attend) but in a more political way (why won’t they have more buses going to where i live or why isn’t the inorganic rubbish collection done more often, for example).

things that i used to like about it are now just plain annoying (seriously, do we all need to live so spread out? and what’s with malls closing so early? wait… i never liked this one anyway). but it’s ok. the city knows i’m still here and i don’t need to express my love quite so much (being here is enough proof, right?).

i criticise auckland a lot because there are a lot of things wrong about it. so really, there’s no rational reason for me to love it. but i do. i don’t tell it very often and i’m always quicker to criticise it than to point out how nice it looks. i mean, why should i? i’ve been here for over a year so it should know by now.

oh auckland, my dear, we’ve become one of those couples…