Somewhere in Australia is an HR specialist who has gone on holiday for two weeks. I don’t know this person. In fact, I have never spoken to her, but her holiday is keeping me up at night. You see, she is the person who is responsible for submitting Ben’s work visa application so we can move as a family to Australia. And, she told us the Friday before Christmas that she would do that when she ‘got back from holidays’ on January 7th.
I don’t begrudge this stranger her holidays, but I am pretty sure she doesn’t understand that the delay – holding off until then, rather than ensuring she got it done before she went away – means that we cannot book our flights to Australia, we can’t book the 30-days quarantine for our cat, because we don’t want the 30 days to be up before we can arrive in Australia, and we can’t finalise the date to put our stuff on a ship, because we want to limit the time we spend out of our naked apartment and in a hotel.
To move a family of two adults and one cat from Seattle to Melbourne is quite a feat, and at the moment there are so many unknowns that I run through all the permutations of possible outcomes in my head at 3 am when I wish I was sleeping. The worries are compounded when I add job hunting overseas, an expiring U.S. visa, international banking and investments, Australian Customs rules and recommendations, house-hunting in a new city, and saying good bye to loved ones in Seattle.
I would love to borrow Dorothy’s ruby slippers for a moment. As someone straddling two homes, I just want to tap my feet together three times and wake up in my (new) home in Melbourne in three months’ time. I know, I know: don’t wish my life away…
Off the Beaten Track 