November Pain - See what I did there? 13 days.

It's Drago's Birthday too.

The fact that I turned 31 today and 30 this time last year has pretty much passed me by. I really did catch myself a few times last month totally forgetting my birthday was approaching. I got a note from my mum a few weeks back asking if I was coming to hers for dinner on the third, and my first thought was why? As with most adults, the emphasis on your own birthday tends to fade when you have kids, but the events of the last year have compounded this for me.

I can’t quite remember why we decided that my birthday was the best day for Cassie and Davie to leave last year, I’m sure it was to do with a combination of flight availability and cost, and the ins and outs of shipping the dogs back to the USA. Oh, it was because the house sale was to go though on the 5^th, and we needed to get the house cleared.  There wasn’t really anywhere for three of us and two dogs to stay so it was best they all went ahead of me, with me following once I got my green card. At the time I obviously didn’t expect to be here for a whole year, but even the thought of being apart for the planned three months was a pretty big deal. The green card was a formality though, so we weren’t too worried.

That all changed of course once the house sale fell through. Even though we were given assurances that the buyer already had a mortgage in place prior to us accepting the offer, they didn’t, and couldn’t. My solicitors dragged the process on so long that we had already made all of the moving arrangements before we found out, about two weeks before they were set to fly out.

and Adam Ant's

Despite this we decided to go ahead with everything, partly due to the majority of the costs being non-refundable and the amount of work that had gone into making the arrangements, and also in the hope that there would be the same level of interest in the house as there was prior to accepting the offer.  I also figured that there was no point in all of us facing the uncertainty, when Cassie and Davie could go and get settled ahead of me. I think this was a case of me being far too rational, and not nearly as selfish as I should be sometimes.  

So we forged ahead and kept to our plans and tried not to let the situation get on top of us. It had been a hard few months, but we still had some of the left over optimism from prior to me getting paid off, and it at least felt like the move was finally happening. At the time there was a good chance that this wouldn’t affect our timeline, as I still had some work to do with the visa, but it did have financial implications as I now had a mortgage and bills to pay whilst living on my own, seriously reducing my ability to save for the move, and with my redundancy pay now running out and no house sale proceeds on the horizon there was a lot of uncertainty and worry.

He's cool

On top of all that, the day before Cassie and Davie left could hardly have gone any worse, as at the last minute the costs to transport the dogs almost doubled due to a monumental fuck up by the shipping company. Finding this out ten minutes before they were due to be picked up, and being left with no alternative but to stump up the cash was absolutely sickening and was the shit flavoured icing on the cake of an incredibly shitty three months.

By then it would have easy just to think that everyone was just out to fuck us over. Everything about the move had been pretty well planned, but it seemed that it all just went to shit as soon as we pulled the trigger and decided to go for it. Therefore I think we did pretty well to keep doing what we had to do, making sure that we were at least doing everything in our power to make things work.

and the inventor of these

Now it’s another weird birthday, but for different reasons. I’m two weeks from finally getting the move I’ve both been longing for and dreading, for the same reasons any sane and normal person would. I’ve been two weeks away before though. Recently every phone call, letter, and e-mail has been received with a great deal of dread, as I just can’t accept that this is all going to happen without a problem. Every minute between now and 6pm (CST) on November 16^th will be filled with the same dread.  I am once again in a position where everything is organised and there is nothing else left to do which is under my control. 

I got an e-mail from my estate agent about two hours ago and just seeing the “from” address was sickening, as I was half expecting news of a major issue with the house or the tenant. It was just my rent statement. 

Finally getting this move sorted doesn’t mean our life is going to be plain sailing and worry free, but it will be great to get back to dealing with normal issues, together.

This takes away slightly from what today should be, and that’s my last birthday here with my family. For now at least. It’s not like we’re doing anything big, but we never make a production of birthdays, and a quiet one would be nice. So if anything’s going to go tits up, can it wait until Thursday please?