Life updates | Migration Tales

9th November 2017

I haven’t been very good at writing the last while! I think it’s just this weird phase of my life that I’m in. Kinda transition phase…

We are still mostly just waiting! Although there has been one step of progress:

Gerard got his visa!! YAY

But Oden and I are still waiting with no news…

In the meantime, we’ve done a few other things and set other plans into motion.

We still have nowhere to live when we get there
We don’t have flights booked yet – because we have no visas
We don’t have temporary accommodation booked
We haven’t finished renovating our house before we can sell it, but we can’t sell it until we have visas either just to be safe
I still have no job over there – impossible to do without a visa even though I keep trying but literally get rejected immediately without a visa.

Things we have done

I have faced my fears and gone to the dentist! – This may seem like no big deal but to me, it’s pretty huge! I am TERRIFIED of dentists after a bad (traumatic) experience with an evil dentist age 12ish. Feels like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders to finally get this done.
I have booked myself in for eye lasik surgery! EEK! Yup, next week Wednesday I go get my eyes lazered! People keep asking me if I’m afraid. I’m not even a little bit. YES, they do cut open your eye but I figured after what I’ve been through what’s a little flap in my eye 😛 HA! So this means I’ve spent A LOT of time running up and down to appointments and getting checks done in preparation. Totally worth the freedom that will come from not having to wear glasses anymore to be honest!
We have booked painters to come and sort out our house!
We have met with the agent so that we can get a good evaluation on our house
We have opened New Zealand bank accounts – this is probably the most exciting part for me. We actually already got post from our new bank!! Yikes!
We have also officially given Oden’s school notice that he will not be returning next year. This was SO hard to do because we love his school and he loves his school. He lives for school and even asks to go see his teacher on the weekend! We will really miss the love and kindness that they have shown our child over the last year. Hard as it was putting him in school in the first place, the people there have shown us that it was the right choice!

The struggle is real

Honestly, at the moment, my biggest concern is that we won’t be able to find a rental that will take us plus four animals. It gives me sleepless nights honestly. We had a back up plan if we couldn’t find a rental that would take them, we’d just buy a small house but the new Prime minister is changing the laws and non-residents won’t be able to buy houses there soon. So that’s fallen away. Oh well!

Our animals will be in kennels for a month in SA and then 10 days quarantine in NZ so that gives us a little time to find a house. Fingers crossed!

My anxiety is through the roof at the moment. Every email I get my heart races hoping that it’s finally the one.

My diary is almost fully booked up between now and the date we hope to leave (December 9th if we get our visas in time) and I’m just constantly exhausted.

So many people ask us why don’t we just stay for Christmas and the truth is, we just want to start this next part of our lives and stop waiting. Waiting for everything to happen. We want to find our new normal and settle in and let go of some of this stress!

I know that it will all happen exactly when it does and stressing over it doesn’t change anything but can someone maybe tell my brain to stop panicking because I don’t think it understands the futility.

Also, as the time draws nearer to d-day, I realise more and more just how much I’m going to miss this place and the people in it. Saying good-bye isn’t going to be easy…