Silver linings.

After having toyed with the idea for six or seven years, in May 2005 I attended an introductory meeting for nurses interested in emigrating to the US and finally made the decision to give it a go! Got started on the process which was estimated to take between two and two and a half years.

Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork! It seemed to never end. Got a job offer from a hospital in central CA. Medicals, bloodwork, telephone interviews. Lost that job offer when the hospital group changed ownership. But we kept going. Studied for, wrote and passed the NCLEX exam in June 2006. In October 2006, we heard that emigration processing had speeded up and there was a chance that we'd get there sooner, much much sooner. Like within six months - yippee!! More paperwork. Took the IELTS exam for English proficiency. Got a police clearance. More paperwork. Finally, in January 2007, the emigration attorneys filed my I-140 application, the second to last step in the process. When the I-140 is approved, you get a INS priority date, meaning you are in the home stretch - just a consular interview to get through and finally, that Green Card will be yours.

Time passed and we waited. The news was that processing time seemed to have slowed right down again, people were waiting longer now, much much longer. Like EIGHTEEN MONTHS from the issuing of an I-140 to getting a priority date, a wait that used to take max 4- 5 months.

A few days ago, I got an email from my agent, who is wonderful and amazingly committed and supportive.

It is so difficult to judge timing etc for applications right now. We need to find an offer for you as soon as possible and I have someone who might be interested in the Home Health side at the moment and am waiting for their response to your resume’.

My opinion is that you should do what you need to do in order to survive in South Africa for at least another year to 18 months judging from the current INS priority dates.

Well. That was a blow and no mistake. Part of my need for this to happen relates to the fact that in many ways we are living 'in limbo' - not really wanting to get too deeply into anything here but not able to get involved in anything over there either. My son who is graduating from high school in Dec this year has registered for a one year Foundation course in 2008, with a view to continuing his education when we get to the States. My daughter goes into Grade 10 next year - we'd hoped she'd be able to start senior high in the US not here, as the curricula are very different. I've been marking time with several part-time jobs, gradually distancing myself from friends, not dating and wrestling with existential crises, lol!

More importantly, though, with the upcoming move in mind, I recently accepted an offer on my house, made by dear friends who plan to sell their own large home and renovate my smaller home into a comfortable retirement property. The deal isn't done yet--they have to sell before it can go through. But with my son moving out in Jan (he'll probably live with his dad for 2008, which will be great for them and will mean easier access to college for him), I'd planned to rent something really small and easy to maintain for my daughter and myself. Put the money from the house sale into the bank and let the interest fund the rental property. That still seems like a good plan.

But here's the biggie: In many ways, I've felt like I've really wasted time the last year or so. Not doing much writing. Not developing career-wise, just getting by with not very challenging part-time work. Not doing anything constructive at all, really. Just drifting along, gathering dust, getting depressed (and indulging in a lot of comfort eating!) Now I suddenly have a large chunk of time up ahead for which I have no specific plans. A year to a year and a half.. maybe even two, who knows?

I could carry on drifting, waiting, dreaming, eating, reading, blogging etc etc.

OR I could take hold of this time and make it productive.

So I started thinking about all the things I've often thought of doing, if I had the time and money. And I made a list, including the serious and the silly (and I'm very open to more suggestions!):

1. Do an MFA in creative writing
   
2. Get a personal trainer and get into shape
3. Study primary health care, useful for advanced nursing practice in the US
   
4. Audit courses in a subject that interests me … science, philosophy, literature, cosmology
5. Write, produce and direct a short movie
6. Study naturopathy or homeopathy
   
7. Plan, train for and do some kind of challenging trip eg the Otter Trail, or cycling from here to Durban (yeah, and get murdered along the way? No thanks! ;-) Maybe somewhere outside SA would work though ....
   
8. Buy a video camera and learn to use it
9. Buy a good digital camera and do a digital photography course
10. Join an amateur dramatic society and get involved in a few plays
    
11. Do a course in counselling e.g. LifeLine or similar
    
12. Do a basic paramedic course and volunteer part time with CMR
13. Do a course in therapeutic massage or reflexology
    
14. Learn to speak French
15. Learn to play a musical instrument, eg violin, cello
16. Learn a new software package, eg InDesign
17. Take up bellydancing or paragliding or rockclimbing or microlighting - something that stretches me mentally and physically
    

Now I'm doing the research, looking into everything, doing the financial calculations, thinking hard, dreaming big. If it works out, the gray cloud of delay could have a shiny silver lining and this might just be the midlife sabbatical year I've often dreamt of taking.

Ten good reasons to emigrate

Yesterday I met with Dave, the guy who runs the agency handling my proposed emigration to the US. Before my one-on-one meet with him, he had a general info session for prospective emigrants and he revisited all the reasons one might have for deciding to emigrate. These, he reminded us, are what you hang on to when the process gets tough.

I am so glad he did that. I’d lost sight of a lot of them, of all those things that first persuaded me to start this process.

Education:

He referred mainly to the school his own kids (11 and 17) attend in Irvine, CA, which is an upmarket area. Kids get an astounding education compared to here. In school, a lot of work is project-based, meaning own research and submission of paper / model / etc. His kids come home, log onto the school website, find the homework the teacher has posted for them, complete it and return it via the net. It is assumed that everyone has high-speed internet at home …Travel opportunities for all disciplines – study Spanish and you could find yourself on a trip to Spain. Travel with the school choir to festivals nationwide. The drama dept has a fully-equipped theatre, not just a school hall shared with sports activities. Backstage crew has a room full of power tools and equipment to build sets, etc. Community sport facilities are in abundance and are well-maintained - tax payers money being put to good use!

Work:

Who you are doesn’t limit what work you can do. Grannies serve you at McDonalds, for e.g. White women clean houses. Nothing is considered a demeaning job if it earns you a good wage. Jobs are not given on the basis of your age, race, sex or similar. Kids work summer jobs and earn good money – minimum wage is $7.00 ph. Babysitters get between $7 – 10.00 ph and more after midnight.


Security: This is a BIGGIE for South Africans!!

The houses have no fences, no security doors, no burglar bars, no alarm systems.
Post gets dropped in unlocked mailboxes, both delivery and to go.
Parcel deliveries are left on your doorstep if there is no one home and they don’t get stolen.
Kids can walk all over the neighborhood in safety and with freedom. (Here, I used to escort my child just to go next door, make sure she was safely inside with the gate locked before I’d go!)
Cars get left on the street, unlocked and no one worries ..
Houses get left unlocked, and no one worries …
If you are a pedestrian, the motorists stop instantly if you step into the road …

All this I know to be true, btw, from my last two visits to the US. Even in NY, when people cross the road, the traffic waits.

Cars:  

A big fancy car which costs around R250 000.00 here sells for maybe $25 000.00 there – monthly repayments are around $500.00 max.

Salaries:  

Most nurses earn around $30.00 average, not including benefits and overtime. Nurses are well-paid compared with the general population and live good lifestyles. Obviously, if you work in Podunk, Arkansas, you won’t earn as well, but then your cost of living is going to be much lower!

All in all, I was reminded of a million good reasons why I want to do this.

In our meeting thereafter, he told me that the INS processing time, which used to be around a year, is now down to 2 - 3 months. The paperwork for the VisaScreen credentialing goes forward simultaneously, taking also 2 – 3 months. Then, with the INS paperwork and the VisaScreen certificate in place, you request a green card interview with the US Consulate in Johannesburg. This can take 3 - 6 months to get done, depends on them. An estimated min of 6 months, max of 9 months once the paperwork is done. Yikes!!!
 
Hospitals are not taking on new RNs so far in advance anymore, like FRHG did. So what he is doing is sending out resumes once you are 4 - 5 months from the completion of the process, so that by the time you have your green card, you also have a good job offer with a good relocation allowance etc.

If I elect to go with the present flow, meaning we'd be there within the next 6 - 9 months, his agency will sponsor me and carry initial costs, recouping these from the sponsoring hospital later on. If I wait and go at say the end of next year, I have the option of temporarily halting the process, but that could lead to a longer wait as there is a strong possibility that with all the new emigration stuff and amnesties and whatnot, if those Bills are passed, the INS is going to be snowed under and things could get looooong and drawn out again. Or, I could elect to fund it myself, go ahead now and then make the actual move when we are ready to do so - you get six months from the time you get your green card to make the actual move.

I pitched to him the possibility of finding a position in LTC - long-term care as opposed to acute care hospitals - as I do have a lot more recent experience in this field and it is one I am comfortable working in. A good idea and viable, as this is also an area where staff are needed. I needed to revamp my resume and send it to him – he can then market me closer to D-Day.

Lots of decisions to be made … and I need to move on this soon.

More about the ambivalence

One of the hardest parts of being a single parent is making life-changing decisions alone. Hence my real need to look to God for help and guidance, and the real anguish I experience when I ‘think’ I hear from Him and then it all goes wrong, or doesn’t happen.

How do you trust when God seems to be either absent, or not interested, or simply doesn’t do what you thought He said he was going to do? How do you know the difference between God’s guidance and things in life just happening?

I blogged about this in relation to singleness and remarriage earlier on. The other area of huge concern to me right now is our proposed emigration plan.

Moving to the US is a dream I have had for about five years now. Where do our dreams come from, how do our desires take root in our hearts? If the Bible is to be believed, God says: “Seek the Lord in all that you do and He will give you the desires of your heart.” I thought I was being pretty smart when I interpreted that to mean if you put God first in life, then HE will place within your heart those desires that are within His will and plan for your life, and not that it meant: Love God and He’ll give you everything you want.

Earlier this year, I had a dream. I was high up in the mountains of California and there was an earthquake warning. Cars were pulling off the roads, so I stopped and expressed my fear to a woman, telling her my kids were down in the Valley, we hadn’t been in CA very long. She reassured me, and showed me where people were taking shelter in specially-built earthquake shelters in the mountainside. Huge bunkers with thick concrete and dense glass windows, they were literally earthquake proof. We all survived. I wondered if it wasn’t maybe God’s way of saying – take the plunge, I’ll take care of you even if everything seems to be going wrong around you. Take a chance.

Considering and praying further, I asked for prayer at church and a trusted friend and church leader who prayed with me shared a ‘word’ that seemed to confirm that stepping forward while trusting God to carry me was indeed the way to go. Other things fell into place as previously discussed in Life Choices and Changes Part Two.  And the process got underway.

I’m battling with ambivalence right now. While my father supports this move intellectually, I can see and hear that neither he nor my dear mom are happy about us living so far away, and of course I can understand that. These are two of their precious grandchildren I’m proposing to remove from their lives. My folks are in their seventies, health is an issue and we’ll be very far away. My best friend in SA is very, very unhappy about it and is doing her best to find ways of keeping us here. My kids’ dad is now starting to express his sadness at losing regular contact with them and of course, I understand and empathize with that too! On the other side, my freelance writing and editing business seems to be taking off after two plus years of struggle. But the likelihood is that in order to secure a new contract position in the US, I’m going to have to go back into nursing fulltime here, to get current experience, either now or next year. Honestly? I have no desire to do that. Nursing is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

I’ll be meeting with the agency director this coming Saturday, and will find out where I stand in terms of jobs, process and financial commitments. Much depends on that too.

Oh, groan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Elleann

Ambivalence

Today I got what felt like a real kick in the stomach.

My ex sent me an email in which he first complained about how much money all the kids' stuff is costing him. Now in fairness, not once in twelve years has he ever defaulted on paying anything for the kids. He is very, very committed to them, is as involved in their lives as he can be, and loves them dearly. Ten out of ten for being a good dad!

But actually, the money thing wasn’t the kick in the stomach. He went on to say:

I am feeling quite sore about the kids right now. The holiday was a very sad one for me, looking at them each day, thinking this is probably the last time we'll go on such a holiday and that soon I'll only be seeing them once a year, if that, depending on their timetables. Whatever, it is just rather emotional and the possibility of either of them ever living in my home for a while slips away as the plans for moving to the USA fall into place and the day draws closer. It has cost me a lot to stay in touch with them over the years, emotionally and financially but progressively they have been moved further and further away and it requires more and more to keep up the contact!!!

I can empathize with the emotional pain he feels. I really can. And the last few blog entries have revealed my ambivalence re the whole moving to America thing from my side. But the last part (in bold) was a real kicker. He makes it sound as if I have deliberately kept moving them further and further away from him, which is totally untrue.

After we separated back in 1994, we lived round the corner from him for three and a half years. Then, after discussing it with him, the kids and I moved away from that upmarket suburban area to a more rural environment. As a single working mom, I didn’t think I could keep up with the lifestyles they would see around them in that part of town, and I didn’t want them to grow up feel deprived, or less-than just because we couldn’t afford all the latest gadgets and cars and stuff. And it was the right choice to make for them, I think. They have happy lives and good friends, are well-adjusted, have both committed their lives to God, and they are both doing pretty well in school too. Financially it has been nip-and-tuck, but on the whole, we are doing well – on the pro side: I bought the house we live in five years ago. On the con side: I drive a crappy old clunky car.

But moving here was a bad choice for me, in terms of my staying single, though. This area is full of happy little families and retirees – eligible singles can be counted on one hand. Now, if this were a movie, there’d be someone like Viggo Mortensen running the local bookshop – sorry, Vig – artshop! and after some ups and downs, we’d fall madly in love and live happily ever after. But my life is more like one of those dark, dreary art movies where nothing is ever resolved and you come out of the movie house going “Huh? What the f--- was that all about?!!?”

I digress. I’ve responded to his email, expressed my hurt and acknowledged the pain he feels. Leave it at that.

Update: He responded to my mail, said sorry for "passing on my upheaval over money and all that stuff onto you. It's how I feel, not a statement of fact."

I figured as much, but I guess my ambivalence and worries got to me as well, hence my overreaction. Back to my art movie life ...

Life changes and choices - Part Two

“More tomorrow” should have read “More Next Month!” Ha!

Back in the mid-1990s, I became aware that more and more companies were recruiting SA nurses for positions in the UK, Saudi, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US. Now, in my heart of hearts, I’ve never been ‘Proudly South African’! Yes, this country is beautiful and yes, my family all live here. But still I yearned to move somewhere – anywhere, really – that wasn’t crime-ridden, corrupt, full of white guilt and black anger, where jobs weren’t handed out on the basis of skin color, where my kids would have real opportunities to follow their dreams and live in relative peace and safety.

I wanted out.

But my kids were still young and needed their dad, and he needed them. So I put it to one side, all the time thinking – I could leave anytime, if I really wanted to. Until, in early 2005, I realized that time was ticking by and the possibility for me to emigrate wouldn’t be around forever. I did my research and honed in on a small company that specialized in placing nurses in the US – a girl I knew had made the move through them and she was very happy. I called them, and learned that the US director was in CT – a twice-yearly occurrence. I met with him the next day and within a week, things were underway.

The big plus of going with him was that he recruited for a hospital group that, unlike just about every other agency and group, did not require the prospective nurse-emigrant to be currently fulltime employed as a nurse. My part-time relief work was regarded as sufficient in the light of my CV. In July, I received an excellent job offer. The deal included a generous relocation allowance, plus the hospital would cover all the expenses related to licensing fees, visas, INS services, most of the flight costs etc, for my two kids and I. So I went for the medicals, and started studying for the NCLEX – the US nursing board exam which you have to pass to be licensed as an RN in the States.

Then, at the end of the year, the blow fell. The US hospital underwent an internal reshuffle and recruitment of foreign nurses got axed. I now had no guarantee of work or of financial support for the move. But I couldn’t give up. There had been so many ‘clear signs’ – a dream I’d had, words from a minister I respected, the timing of my meeting with the agency and so on. So I studied like crazy for the next six months and in June 2006, I flew to the UK, took the NCLEX exam in London—and passed it first time. So I am now officially licensed to practice in the USA!

So, now I stand at the door of my future. I’ll be meeting with my US agent in about ten days time and hope to learn from him what the job situation is, how the whole thing could play out. There are so many factors here, though. I’m not a specialist nurse, even though I have previous experience in ICU. So I’d probably need to find a basic med-surg position somewhere. Somewhere, of course, is a whole other story in itself.

But back here at home, my freelance writing and editing career is going from strength to strength. I just landed a contract position with an ad agency to write web copy for a major restaurant group, which has several websites that need weekly updating. Articles, stories, event coverage, educational stuff… interesting work and great experience for me as a freelance. I’m also part of a team pitching on a big tender project, which, if won, could mean several months’ steady work at a really good rate!

However, if current employment as an RN is an issue for a future employer in the US, this may mean I need to go back to nursing here and now, in SA, at miserable rates of pay.

What I’d really like, of course, is to find a job in the US that uses my writing and editing skills against a background of healthcare or nursing, meaning I don’t need to go into hospital work now. Best of both worlds, see?

It’s a dream. A dream I can only leave in God’s hands, cos He’s the one who made me the way I am, gave me the skills, talents, yearnings and desires that I have. So, it’s over to Him.

Elleann.

Life changes and choices - Part One

One of my all-time favorite sci-fi novels is Robert Heinlein’s The Number of the Beast, published in 1980. (This wonderful book parodies the pulp fiction novels of the 30s, as well as paying homage to the Martian novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs.) In this story however, the biblical “number of the beast” turns out to be, not 666, but 6 to the power of 6 to the power of 6 or 10314424798490535546171949056, which equals the number of parallel universes that Zeb, Deety, Jake and Hilda could have visited if they’d had the time…

Parallel universes fascinate me… all those what-if worlds of the past, present and future – I’ve often wished I had a way of finding out what might-have-been in my life, if only I’d chosen a different path to the one I did…

When I was 17, way back in the Dark Ages, there was no such thing as career guidance. I was the oldest child, first of four, and I hadn’t a clue as to what I wanted to do with my life. I knew I liked literature, writing, film, drama, English – but somehow, choosing a career that started with a university education just never came up for discussion. Maybe my parents couldn’t afford it? Maybe we thought I didn’t have the brains for it? I can’t remember. What I do remember is that in the middle of my matric year, my grandmother got sick. I visited her in the state hospital and I remember light, bright airy wards, where the sun shone in through big windows and the gardens outside were dominated by oak trees, squirrels, lilies and agapanthus. The nurses were sweet-smiling, calm, moving round the wards in their starched white uniforms with starched white caps and shiny laced-up shoes. It felt magical to me.

I applied, got accepted and six months later, started my training at that same hospital. My ‘A’ for English, my love for literature and words, my interest in drama—ended up submerged in the nursing world for the next twenty years. The closest I got to literature was reading books like The Magus (John Fowles), The World according to Garp (John Irving) and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (the fabulous and late-lamented Douglas Adams). The closest I got to writing was documenting the bowel actions, aches, pains and pills of my patient’s in the nursing Kardex. The closest I got to drama was seeing Saturday Night Fever and Grease at the flicks!

I’ve worked in nursing almost non-stop since then. Sometimes fulltime, sometimes part time, sometimes day, sometimes night, through singleness and marriage, though my ex-husband’s three years at bible college, through two pregnancies when we subsisted on my income and the good graces of his parents, through the drawn-out months of the divorce, through the two and a half years of my post-divorce health breakdown, through croup and bronchitis, through temper tantrums, childhood depressions and tonsillectomies, through the good and the bad times … I worked.

I have to say, though, that there were times when I really, really liked being a nurse. I like caring for people, relieving pain, advising, helping, counseling, supporting … I liked my years in psychiatry, I liked understanding what makes people tick, I liked learning … but I didn’t like the boring, repetitive nature of most days on the wards. I didn’t like getting up at 5.30 to be at work by 6:45am, I didn’t like leaving my babies with the nanny or the day mother or the crèche.

And during that time, I forgot that I used to like to write. I forgot that I had a vivid imagination. I forgot the joy of the printed word. Movies were for the weekends when the kids went to their dad, books were limited to Danielle Steele . I was in survival mode. Creativity showed up now and then in dreams about starting a business that would earn millions, in dreams of winning the Lotto, in dreams of meeting the real Mr. Right-for-me …

But in 2000, God put me through a bit of spiritual surgery, removing from my heart a dream that I’d clung to for several years. And in the aftermath, as I contemplated the aridity of my life-minus-the-fantasy, I started fiddling around with writing again. Puerile, imperfect scribblings littered my hard drive, words filled my mind, dreams fired up my imagination. I started a writers group, went to a couple of Christian writing conferences in the States (huge, unlooked-for blessings, both!) and moved out of the clinical field into working as a case manager / report writer and editor for a managed healthcare company. Retrenchment followed in early 2004 and I lived on UIF and a small redundancy package for six months before deciding to pursue a freelance writing / editing career.

Two and a half years later, we’re still living from hand to mouth, as I mix freelance work with occasional nursing shifts. Most of the work comes via a friend who runs a very successful graphic design studio, so I write and edit ads, brochures, folder inserts, directories and so on. When the work is there, the pay is great. When there’s no work, I do transcription (long hours, low pay but it’s at home) or nursing (long hours, mediocre pay, away from home). With some serious marketing, (not my strongest point), I reckon I could make a go of this, and still keep on writing fiction on my own time.

BUT … isn’t there always a ‘but’? BUT, there’s another dream in the pipeline. A good dream, a wonderful dream, a life-changing dream. A dream that will upset my current career applecart completely.

More tomorrow …