Wednesday, August 15, 2018

This Time


We've got a couple of weeks during which there is not a ton to do. I'm managing to fill it up with all the things I usually want to do and don't have time for, and I'm finding that those things also give me a lot of time for thinking. As we catapult through another year, I've been thinking about the passage of time and where we have spent it, and with whom. At the end of September, we'll mark eight years with our Z. Eight years, gone in a flash! And four of those have been in London. We've now rounded a corner that means that both of my children have lived longer in London than anywhere else. And I am so grateful for that.

When we made this move four years ago, we knew instinctively that it was the right move for us. We knew it would give us some things we didn't have, and we knew it would be better for our kids than any of the options available to us in the United States. We wanted our kids to grow up around people who look like them and people who don't, people who believe similar things to what we believe and people who don't, people who come from just about everywhere. For us, London is the place we could give those things to them. But it's also so much more. We have truly found a home here. We fit.

There is no guarantee we can be here long term. As much as I wish that weren't true, it is. We hope to stay permanently, but in the end, not all decisions are up to us. Brexit came as a big surprise, and no one knows how that will pan out. The Home Office has to approve our application to remain here indefinitely. We are at the mercy of a lot of things beyond our control. And that's okay. That's how life works. We hope so much that we can stay forever, but it is simply not guaranteed. What is guaranteed is that these four years we have been here have been worth it. They've been a gift to us and our children.

We've got two years left on our current visa, and hopefully by the time that runs out we will have secured indefinite leave to remain. But if we haven't? J and I have agreed that just this period of time here has been worthy of the risk we took coming here and all the work it's taken to settle here and make a life. We hope that the life we've made will be the one we continue to enjoy for many years to come. We are working toward that goal, and there's no big reason to believe things will be otherwise. But if they are? These years have been amazing. I would do it all over again, just the same.

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