dating a widower in LDR

Emigrating To Canada


The Canadian Border Services Agency at the Pac...

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I know many immigrants. They are primarily my students, and they hail from countries nearby like Mexico and from places far away such as Bosnia, Russia and Sudan. They have come to the United States both legally and illegally. Their reasons for coming are as varied as they are. Some came to be adopted. Others with their parents who were seeking jobs or relocating close to other family members. They are political refugees fleeing war torn homelands or seeking asylum from religious persecution. Above all they are kids who smile and laugh and do all the same things that kids do regardless of where they live on the planet.

 

I hear the rhetoric and read the news. Immigration is a hot topic in the upcoming presidential race. The president wants to create a guest worker program for those who are living and working here illegally. It is not an entirely altruistic gesture. Businesses benefit greatly from the use of cheap undocumented workers. I am not sure I completely go along with the argument that these workers are doing work that would go undone without them or that the low wages they are paid depresses wages for the average American citizen. There is probably more to it than that. I do know that there is no way to stop many of these people from coming here and there is definitely no practical way to send the millions who are here already back to their countries of origin. Giving these people status might keep them from being exploited to the extent that they are.

 

Ironically I find myself on the immigrant side of the question these days because I am marrying a Canadian and going to live there. Immigration, it seems, is not the simple thing that our President makes it out to be in his stump speeches. There might be a reason so many poor, under-educated people from south of our border chose to sneak past the Minutemen zealots who patrol their little stretches of border. It is not simple.

 

I have a college degree. Two in fact. And I am finding that the correct information pertaining to my situation to be not quite so comprehensible at times. It’s like anything else to do with government here, or anywhere I would imagine. Everyone reads the same websites and pamphlets and then feels free to interpret it. English is my native language but even reading the information myself doesn’t always answer questions, and I find myself more and more empathizing with illegal parents of my legally born students. Doing things by the book should mean that the book is easy to read and understand. How can people follow the rules if the rules change depending on who reads them and what kind of a day he/she is having?

 

It is exciting however. To go and live in another country. In the states we tend to annex Canadians whenever it is convenient for us. Generally we believe that they are just like us in all things and it is more than just a common language and ancestry that we share. But they are different it seems to me and it goes beyond the “politeness” that my fiance claims Canadians are famous for and this in spite of the fact that they “swear like truckers”. I don’t believe that Canadians feel themselves to be above the world or that there aren’t places beyond their border that are worth more than a cursory inspection on the way to Club Med or the nearest version of McDonalds.

 

One of the first things I am asked when I mention that I am going to live in Canada after Rob and I get married is if I am going to become a citizen and would that mean giving up my citizenship. I don’t know. About becoming a citizen. For the moment, I just want to live in the same place as my husband and be able to send my daughter to school, but I do know that if I should decide to do that someday I would retain my citizenship here as well. A curious thing that people should worry about that. As if they believe that giving it up would exile me to something worse than a third world existence.

 

The next question relates to the weather. Winter is a long season up in Northern Alberta and those who know me (and those who live in Canada and have only heard of me) wonder how I will adapt. And the answer is that I will. I have a lot of incentive after-all.

 

I have always marveled at those who could leave everything behind and start over. Envied them really. I have never been too sure that I had it in me to do anything like that, but in just a little more than two months I will be in Canada.

 

An immigrant.

 

An Engineer will tell you the Glass is just Poorly Designed


A glass half full

Tomorrow Rob, my boyfriend, will finally arrive. He is driving down from Alberta which is a province in Canada. We met on the internet. Apropos considering how much of my life has been spent there in the last couple of years. Last year certainly. The message board we encountered each other on is a site for young widowed people. Not exactly somewhere you would think about finding love. And it wasn’t love. Not at first. It was a friendship.

As it turned out we both have the same need to communicate through the written word, and truthfully are probably much better at communicating that way. We exchanged emails that were more like letters of old, and it wasn’t long before IM’s began eating away sleep time the way grief once did, but I was a much happier person for it and, I assume, so was he.

We met in person for the first time the last weekend in February in Idaho. And yes, that is an odd romantic destination. It will always be a romantic place in my mind however. Now, two some weeks later, he is coming here to spend my spring break with me. In Arkansas. And before you think it, I refute utterly the idea that we might not have much of a clue about romantic getaways. It is not the setting that makes an encounter between two people romantic. It is the intent.

Selling My House


SALE

Image by Gerard Stolk presque 64 via Flickr

One of the more major things that has to be done in regards to moving to be with my boyfriend is selling the house where I live with my daughter. I actually find that a scarier prospect than quitting my job. I am not sure why.

The house represents nothing but the time that my husband was ill. It was my prison in many respects and yet the idea of getting it ready to sell threatens to swamp me emotionally. I think some of it is I will need help to get it ready and I hate asking for helping and letting people help me. Why? Probably my early life experiences have conditioned me to expect people to let me down. My past encounters with “help” have nearly always been that people are willing to help with what they perceive your needs to be rather than what those needs really are or what you would actually like them to do for you.

My initial feelings about this selling business is to just sell it as it is. Whatever I get, I get as long as I don’t sell it at a loss. I just don’t care that much and I really don’t have money to put into it. A fear I have about selling is that it will take time (though I think this is just a fear; something tells me it will sell before the summer ends) and then without a job, how will I pay the mortgage on it while waiting for someone to buy it. Which leads me to other money issues, how do I finish paying off my debts without a job?

I don’t want my boyfriend to do things like this for me.

Even though we have talked (very indirectly) about marriage, it makes me feel imcompetent. And maybe that is what it comes down to really. I am feeling as though I did a very poor job taking care of things this last year or so. I have some debt issues.

The house has updating and minor repair issues that have been neglected. If I were staying here and teaching next fall, I had planned to get all this stuff taken care of but the year’s end. The whole point of getting the master’s degree was to turn the financial situation, imposed on me by Will’s illness and death, around and I knew this woud take about a year.

Going to Canada cuts that time in half, leaves me jobless and with bills still to pay plus a house payment.

Details.

Yes and I know what I have said about details. They work themselves out.

Not calming the inner control freak who really hates for people to know when she is scrambling to come up with solutions to problems simply because she doesn’t want to admit that she is in a bit over her head. I know that the sensible thing to do is to tell R that I might need more time.

I don’t want to do that. Not because I am worried about his reaction. I honestly think he would tell me it isn’t a problem and we’ll do what we need to if I have to work the first semester before coming up.

I just know that taking those extra months will not make the transition easier. It might solve the money issues but for my daughter the better thing would be to go and not come back. It would be better for R and I as well. Trying to go back to the LDR thing will not be easy for either of us. So, of course the thing to do is talk with R about all of this. Why is that so hard?

Probably the money thing for a start. I don’t want him to know about the credit card debt. Half of it was emergencies – car and surgery but the rest was stuff that could have waited and wouldn’t have been an issue but for the emergencies that caught me off guard.

Why do I think knowing this might change his feelings for me? It won’t. It’s that conditinal love thing I learned growing up and really didn’t have enough time with my husband to fully shake.

Communication.

So important and so hard.