Heavy

Here goes, I'll give you a little bit of a low-down.

For anyone who is new here in my little bloggy space (welcome!), here's an illustration of my life right now.

I am Holly, I'm 29 years old, married to an amazing man with whom I have a 3 year old son.  We are New Zealanders, well my husband is a New Zealand and a US citizen.  We are "in-the-process" of immigrating to the US.  My husband went over to the US in March in search of employment while my son and I wait here in New Zealand for our immigration visas to come through.  The idea was that we would be apart from each other for two to three months, visas would come through and we'd be over there before July 4th (which I was SO looking forward to experiencing) and especially, we'd be together for our boy's 3rd birthday party.

That was all about plan C or D in the alphabet of ideas.

Since we've been making plans, I think we've learned that it is sometimes best to not even make a plan - lest we get our hopes up and have to make yet another new plan.

So far, it's the 15th of July.  My husband and I have spent our 5th wedding anniversary apart.  We've spent our son's 3rd birthday party apart.  We've spent hours on Skype.  We've spent hours on frustrating, lagging Skype.  We've spent our nights apart.  It has been no less than 3 months and 21 days and we are still waiting for some kind of word.

My husband has heard that we 'should' hear from them in the next month.  I know this is good news.  This is reason to be happy.  Rejoice.

But, honestly, I am struggling.  I've held on for so long, my grip is weakening.  I never for a second anticipated the wait would be this long - and it's only going to be longer, at least a month after we officially hear from the visa-place will we, maybe, be able to see each other in 'real life' again.  I'm not getting enough sleep, I had a dizzy episode at work and had to come home, after only being there for about half an hour.

It's not just me struggling, my husband is too.  I'm not sure exactly how our boy is coping, but he truly seems to be going 'ok'.

A week or two ago I made a set of binoculars out of a cardboard roll, cello-tape and string.  I even said, "You might be able to see Daddy with these."  I felt my heart break when he ran to the window and looked through the new binoculars, only to show me his most confused and sad face when he couldn't actually see Daddy.  Oops.  He understands the word 'pretend' so I should have explained that a little better beforehand.

Heart.  Broken.

I'm not exactly sure how to put into words what I feel.  It's such a weird place to be in, almost grieving, almost ecstatic, almost glad, almost hopeful, in despair.

Honestly... I am discouraged.  I don't know a heavier word to put beside that awful word 'discouraged' because it's too light.  It's not simply that I've had something sad happen, or not happen and I'm wallowing in self-pity.  It's more of an emotionally-exhausted, silently-screaming, incapasitatingly-confusing situation.  Some days I can't get anything done, and I don't know why.  Other days I somehow manager to get so much done, and wonder how I did it - worrying that the next day I'll be expected to perform the same.

Over-thinking, under-thinking, forgetting, managing, just.  I have had my up days.  I have had my down days.  I'm quite finished with this unknowing.  It's actually really, really hard.

Right now, I'm holding on to the hope that we will hear in the next month.  I just don't want it to go on for any longer than that.  Please.

This certainly was not in any of our plans.



xx



PS  I miss blogging.  I feel like I've neglected this space, a place where I enjoy showing off my fun stuff, not my sad stuff, so please look forward to hearing great and awesome and fantastic news in the next month!

PPS  I just need cuddles.

PPPS  Next time (thank God, there won't be a next time), we would definitely do this a different way around.