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My name is Shirley, I’m 32. I’m originally from England, and my husband and I have been living in New Zealand for almost four years now. To be honest… these have been the hardest years of my life. Not because New Zealand is a bad country — far from it. It’s just that sometimes life hits you so hard you stand there wondering how you’re even still breathing. We left England because we couldn’t see a future there anymore. Bills. Loans. Wages you almost felt embarrassed to talk about. Then my husband said to me: “Shirley, if we stay here, we’re just going to drown. In New Zealand at least there’s a chance to start a proper life.” We sold our old Fiat Punto, packed a few suitcases and left. The first few months were still manageable. My husband found work in a warehouse near Hamilton. I started working too — first cleaning, then in a small shop. We rented a tiny flat. Old. Cold. With mould in the corners. He’d get up at five in the morning, gulp down a coffee and head to work. He’d come home late at night with swollen hands, a stiff back and a completely empty look in his eyes. Every day, 11–12 hours shifting pallets, boxes and tonnes of other people’s goods. I’d watch him collapse onto the bed without even having dinner. And the next morning it would start all over again: “Get up… we’ve got to work.” And honestly, I was on the edge of burnout too. At work — crowds of people, noise, fake smiles. People with expensive handbags and brand-new iPhones talking about holidays and restaurants. They were laughing. They were living. And I was standing behind the till thinking: “When am I finally going to start living instead of just surviving?” Then everything fell apart. During a night shift my husband was pulling a pallet and suddenly doubled over in pain. He said something “clicked” in his back. He thought it would pass soon. It didn’t. A week later he couldn’t sit or stand. The pain was so bad he was crying. Hospital. Pinched nerve. Disc problems. No
