It continues - Update 1

Previous post http://ruthico.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/it-begins.html

Step number 1 on our very long list of requirements is that I need to have a current passport. I actually do have a current passport but it's in my old name.

When I changed my name I actually put in an application to change to my new name, and there was some problems with that. Problems possibly caused by me writing the passport office a letter telling them that they're antiquated and sexist. Regardless, 18 months later I need a current passport in my current name to bring Americo to Australia.

I jumped onto the passport application site and followed the instructions to the letter. It was one of those interactive forms, type in your name here, press next, type in your date of birth, press next. There was little pop up instruction boxes for if you don't know how to fill in your name, etc. Webforms for dummies type stuff.

Being an ICT professional I was careful to read all instructions and follow them to the letter. I know full well how particular the government is and I didn't want to give them any reason to delay things.

Do everything I'm told, take it to the interview at Australia Post, and get turned away because my form was printed on double sided paper. Now, website said nothing, it said ready to print, press ok, it printed. No pop-up, no make sure it prints single sided, no nothing, but the idiot asshole in the post office refused to accept it printed double sided. And was rude about it as well.

And then the kicker, he gives me a hard copy form to complete. A double sided hard copy form. DOUBLE SIDED hard copy form. Tells me to make an appointment in two weeks and they'll reconsider.

Of course I lost my shit. Maybe I said he looked messy and unprofessional and should learn some manners. Maybe I overreacted a tiny smidge. MAYBE.

I did lodge a complaint, I did get an interview for today at a different post office with nice people.

I did read every single line of every single instruction on the damn form. So did one of my staff who was acting as guarantor that I'm not a bad person. We still managed to miss him completing his date of birth, but thankfully the rest of the form was complete and correct.

I lodged it today. I hope to have it in two weeks.

Next step: Money. Always money.

Money for the doctor. Money for the application. $2684 for the application alone. Non-refundable.

And not just the money, but the timing for the money. The medical only lasts for 12 months, and sometimes it takes more than 12 months to process a visa, so you want to wait til the last minute to do the medical. But you need to pay for the application to be lodged around the same time. And then you need to send all the paperwork within 7 days of paying for the application.

I hope to have the money for everything by the start of August when I get my tax return back. The plan is to have all the forms completed and evidence gathered by the end of July, by which point I will have passport and money.

And then the long wait begins.

It begins...

Today I officially officially kicked off the start of the visa journey to get my darling man into this country for good. Or at least for longer than 3 months.

I got the information I needed from Immigration.

I got my passport forms completed, got my passport photos, and made an appointment to lodge my passport paperwork. If you're anything like me you're totally astounded that I need a passport to bring my partner here when I'm not actually leaving the country, but let's agree to move part that for now.

We've decided that we're going to go for a Prospective Marriage Visa, rather than a Partner Visa, despite our motza amount of evidence to prove our relationship because the processing times are shorter, and less evidence is required so we have a slightly better chance of getting things approved.

The downside is it cost us an extra $1000 to convert it to a partner visa after we get married, but if that means he gets here sooner and I get to get hitched sooner, then so be it.

It takes about four weeks for my passport to process, which gives us four weeks to get all our paperwork together, and for us to get the last little bit of money we need to lodge all the forms, and then, all things going to plan we're lodging this sucker in early August.

I'm not the optimistic type so I'm trying not to let the words "christmas miracle" get into my head, but I've seen Miracle on 34th Street a few too many times, so you know....

No doubt you'll be seeing updates as they occur, if you're interested in that kind of thing.

Winter

For many winter is a time of depression. The world is grey. The weather is dreary. It's cold. So so cold.

For me, for the last four years, winter has been a time of joy. Something to look forward to. Winter is always the time I get to spend with Americo.

Winter is cozy blankets. Mainlining a TV series. Trips to Starbucks for pumpkin spice lattes. Spicy Chinese shared for lunch. Late nights. Late mornings cuddling.

Winter is our time.

Until now.

There is no trip this year. There is no Halloween. No Christmas trees. No sunsets on windblown beaches. No pecan pie. No family Thanksgiving.

There is just me.

And I can rationalise it. I understand it, I really do. It's been long enough with the trips back and forth. We want this visa. Desperately. There is nothing I want more than the thing where I get to pick him up from the airport and not give him back.

I dream about it constantly.

Picking him up at the airport, straight to hotel to change, wedding in the Asian Gardens in Darling Harbour, a week down the coast soaking in warm winter sunshine and watching spectacular storms crashing across the bay.

And so I have my first winter without him in four years.

My first whole year without him in four years.

I will not see my fiancé in 2013 and I have no words for the heartbreak of that.

Winter is here. The world is grey. Rain. Wind. Storms. And cold, painful, biting, down to my bones, freezing my joints cold.

This year there is no sunshine to brighten my winter.

Like the song says, there ain't no sunshine when he's gone.

Marriage

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
 ~ Pablo Neruda 

I love that poem. I feel the words in my soul. I love all of it, but the close above speaks to me the most. It resonates a wild love, unconfined, not defined, full of power and passion. 

That's the love I believe in. Not the one written out on a piece of paper, authorised by a government official, the roots of the tradition steeped in ownership, religion and control. 

I don't understand the need to let the government authorise something incredible that exists in heart and soul, beyond definition. I don't understand the restriction that only a man and a woman can marry in this country of mine, and so many countries around the world. As if any government can tell you that you can't love who you love. 

And considering my loathing for the tradition, the history, the ownership, the control, the governments stupidity, it is weird that I find myself, at 9:07 on a Saturday night, wishing desperately that I was officially married to the man I already think of as my husband, because then maybe he'd be here with me right now, and not half a world away. 

My Sisters Keeper?

I spend a lot of time wondering if there's a future where I'm going to be responsible for taking care of my sister.

Right now my mum takes the three, four, five, six a day phone calls. She manages the care facilities, the bills, all the things that need to be done for my sister because there's so many times she can't look after herself.

I don't know if I'm ever going to be in a mental place where I'm going to be the person that can look after her.

I also spend a lot of time wondering what kind of person that makes me.