A Mid-Life start – Down Under – Part 1
I didn’t know there was a template for a blog post in MS
word.
In the last 2 years, an idea which was dormant in my idea
for about 2 decades or so started germinating. It was mostly watered by the
birth of my daughter (that sounded weird) It was about migrating to Australia.
There was something about this place which allured me. It was away, self-sufficient,
least bothered, aloof, didn’t give a damn and it was both ugly and pretty. It
was me in a lot of ways.
I started the immigration process by visiting those visa
consultants (a special mention of a friend, TJ, a discussion with whom helped
me narrow it down) and then over the period of the next 4-5 months struggled
through the documentation process. Husband complied wherever possible, but was
mostly a sleeping partner in the whole process (that’s very unlikely of him,
though. As I discover much later that he played along as he wasn’t much keen on
migration, but did so on my behest).
Nevertheless, half of 2014 and all of 2015
went by with not much happening except of applications and waiting to hear from
the dept. of immigration. . Finally, in Feb 2016, we received our visa
grant!
I remember how restless Hubby and I were before the grant
came along…and when it did, we just couldn’t wait to move. After a detailed
discussion, we decided to move by end July as we had professional and personal
commitments to meet. The next 4 months were testing, full of anxiety, nervous,
etc as we were sailing in two boats. But they were also some of the best too as
so many colleagues reached out to us, and still do, to tell us how much we are
missed or how much our work is valued. That wasn’t feel good…but that actually
felt good :)
Ok, me digresses. We visited all the relatives and families,
had some good time and before we knew it was about a week till departure. This
when the shit started hitting the fan. Inspite of planning everything in so
much advance, things just started falling apart. Though, all the furniture was
sold, all the accounts were closed and withdrawn...there was some stuff that
was to be transferred to the in-laws place. This didn’t happen on the day it
was planned. The packers didn’t show up. It happened 3 days later and it was
enough to throw everything in front of the bus. We were to travel on 23rd
morn. The stuff should’ve left our place by 17th…it left by 21st.
Which meant that it shaved off that many precious days from the last min
packing. Add to it, on 22nd we had some stall-ups happening…some
massive ones…which meant hubby and I were basically up all night packing and
showering and then leaving for the airport.
The chaos of those preceding 24 hours. The stuff that we had
to leave behind and the way we had to leave it behind...the 10 years of having
built it from scratch…it all just didn’t deserve the ending it got. It will suffice
to say to say Hubby and I used to still get nightmares of those 24 hours’ weeks
after we landed in Oz.
We didn’t leave India on a happy note.
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