“Why would you ever want to leave the United States”?
That is a question I seem to get daily. Some people cannot fathom packing up their whole life into 2 carry on bags and starting completely over. You see, this has been my life since I was old enough to run. At 14 I was disappearing for weeks, and on and off until I was 21. I made it a challenge to see how far and fast I could run. I was the epitome of girl filled with wanderlust and never saw a chance to stay. I ran from Virginia to New York, North Carolina, Florida and hopes of other places. When I moved to Columbus I felt at home in a city that I had never called my own. I was seeing the lights, people and tall buildings of my dreams with that small town charm I loved. I soon there after met my now husband.
So with all that said why would I/we ever choose to leave? We are choosing to leave because my life has been deemed less than by my own government. I cannot sponsor my husband to be a permanent resident. Money is not something that has ever been important to me, but over the last 3 years I have been forced to see it as a must have. I could show you endless notebooks and planners full to the brim with lists and plans of how exactly every penny would be spent. I still was not able to meet the “poverty line”. I was a full time student going back into a career I had left once to start over. I’m sure I will have plenty of blogs about going back to school at 24 after working full time for many years before.
Around May of 2016 Alexander and I started to file for Permanent Residence. We spent hours and hours researching and planning how it could work out. I would end up reading myself into a panic attack. I am not good at worry or stress. That is especially true when I am in jeopardy of losing the one I love the most. You see, I tend to go into survival mode and jump to the absolute worst conclusion of what is going to happen.
We worked on the seven documents for around 3 months. We had spent tons of money on printing out and reprinting documents, getting notarized copies and translations. With the fees of close to four thousand dollars, and a lawyer fee of three thousand looming over our heads, we were exhausted.
One morning around 3:00am I was in the middle of a panic attack and literally could not handle the fact that we might not be able to continue living the life we had started together, where we planned it. Alex was talking me off of what seemed to be the third cliff that week. I turned to him and said it.
I felt an energy leave my body as I began to wonder why I was putting so much effort into something that was eating me from the inside out. From that night on we started researching how and where we could go. That search went from England to Norway, Australia, Malta, and back to Alex’s home country of Italy.
I think we really made the decision to leave that night. Although we did go back and forth with it. I could no longer live looking at my bank account hoping for a miracle, or for a job to fall from the sky and save us. Now, here we are almost a year later with all but one of the steps taken to move to Italy. The last step cannot be completed until we arrive in Italy. You shouldn’t worry though I am going to make a series of blogs about when, where and how we are moving. I plan on writing everything from dealing with immigrating to another county, how to do so, and what we will do when we are there. I am so excited to share my journey with you. You can follow my blog for everything you can imagine when it comes to life. Blogs, Pictures, Recipes, Tutorials and lots and lots of traveling.
