Well a week from today I'll be crossing the boarder and activating my K-1. This weekend I moved out of my apartment. Did anyone else have that very surreal experience of sitting in their apartment, starting at the blank walls, looking around you and realizing this is all really happening, and feeling an out of body experience? I am 100% about our decision, looking forward to the change, and of course being reuinited with the man of my dreams, but to leave one's country, it's altogether overwhelming at times. I just think about learning new towns, new stores, new "brands".. making new friends, and social scene. I know it will all sort itself out, that time is the one thing that will help the situation. I'm not down, don't get me wrong, but I am curious to hear anyone else's "packing" stories

Ya, I found it hard to belive myjourney was pretty much over when I looked around the empty apartment, was weird,but exciting. I found it most weird, when I stopped at the Tim hortons where I went pretty much every morning for the last time!! lol

My surreal experience came at the interview, it was so...not how I pictured it. I couldn't imagine that this was it, and we actually had the visa in our hands.

Cass (bebop the great)

I remember sitting in my apartment surrounded by all of the boxes - I had been packing for months and living with boxed up belongings for so long that I was using the boxes like furniture. Joe had driven the rental minivan in the night before and the United Way had picked up the bed and the vacuum and the rest of the items needed to the last minute a few minutes earlier. The moving van would be in a few days later to pick everything up and a friend would meet it. So, this was it - the actual moment when the cats and I would leave behind everything we had ever known - family, friends, home, job, country - because of one man. I didn't have too many moments to reflect because we had to load up the van, put the cats in their carriers and safely strap them in, then put in everything else that we were transporting down ourselves and be on our way in half an hour. Still, as I looked around the apartment, I remembered when I had moved into it 7 years before and a wave of nostalgia washed over me. Like you, I had no regrets and was 100% sure that this was what I wanted to do, still, it is a moment of truth to stare your decision straight in the face like that and willingly leave the past behind to walk into your future.

Good luck on your travels south and the rest of your visa journey. It is the first day of the rest of your life.

My children ( 3 of them) and I moved to Canada to live with my then fiance for a year. When you mentioned learning new brands it made me chuckle ,remembering trying to shop and having no clue which were good brands and which were crummy store brands. I never shopped alone............and if I wanted to purchase cold meats..........ummm lunch meat, since I didn't know how to do the conversion at first, I'd just hold my finger and thumb apart and say " I'd like that much please"...........it always cracked the girls up. Then once I learned the conversion , it took me even longer to shop as I'd convert the weight then the money to figure if it was a good deal or not. It was such an adventure..........all of it.


I guess if I could give any words to make it easier they would be..........just make it an adventure. Don't consume yourself with what you're leaving behind, but fill your thoughts with the excitement of what's yet to come. In time you'll come to realize how little that apartment meant, the friends you have that are worth keeping will always be your friends and your family, well for frig sake you cant shake those people even if ya wanna. Maybe it's my nomadic instincts, maybe its having buried a husband, or the countless other times Ive started my life over but Ive learned that it all works out in the end. Everything turns out as it should and you'll be better having had the experience.


Anyway ,all the best to you both. Have an awesome move............and get a calculator

My Love,

You truly have made waiting for you so worth all the heartache of our separation. To see what you have had to go through and put up with as this process has ground on so seemingly slowly at times humbles me and reminds me that I am the most blessed man around.

I can't wait to see that bridge again knowing it will be the last time I have to cross it alone. Before, happiness was seeing New Brunswick in the rear view mirror as I crossed it. Next Monday happiness will be seeing PEI in the rear view mirror, with you in the passenger seat, holding your hand as we drive across together.

I know this transition will be difficult at times for you, but I am right there for you my love. I don't want to be on any other journey except the one that leads closer to you and your heart.

I am so thankful I get to love you for the rest of my life

GOD DANG IT KIP!!!!!

<passes the tissues>

....you ALWAYS make me blubber. That is the sweetest freakin' thing EVER!

what a fortunate woman you are emanc..........now if that man isnt worth walking and not looking back , I cant imagine what would be!!!

A world of love to you both!!!!!!

That was real. It says everything about your relationship and your bitter-sweet move. It says that there is nothing to worry about, it's just another wonderful step in your life together. Enjoy it - though I know you both will.

I haven't even started packing my stuff yet, but I should soon. Provided I get my packet 3 and interview date soon, I won't be here for that much longer... *crosses fingers*

I imagine it will be totally surreal for me too, to finally be able to move to be together permanently!

WOW
That was beautiful. But now all the other SO's on here will have something to work towards!! I can only hope that my fiance has that depth of understanding when this process is over. After a year of research-he finally looked at a handfull of websites (including this one) that I have been on. (And yes-he is the US counterpart that should be filing everything-he just can't multi-task worth a darn). He has a glimmer of what the process entails and is starting to understand that is not just filling out 2 forms and crossing your fingers.

We thought we would have this done a year ago. So I started the heinous act of "downsizing". Not easy with 2 teenagers and a life time of memories. The idea of leaving my country scares the bejeezes out of me. Disprupting my children's lives etc. But in the end, I love him, they love him, he loves us (all of us) and now we share a beautiful little girl together too. Sometimes, people have to selfish. Look out for what will make them happy in the end. Thank goodness my kids love him and understand that mommy is doing everything for them in the end. Makes all this "process" crap seems like nothing and the "move" even less.

Best of luck and you've got yourself a great guy!
Angel

We're getting there ourselves. For the last few months, each time my fiance has come up to visit, he took a good chunk of our things back with him (I hadnt thought that would be allowed, but the border guards just popped the trunk and sent him on his way, and last time asked him when they'd be seeing us go back with him not just our stuff) Since approval, gotten rid of many things. Walls are bare. As each day passes, more and more is getting tucked away or given away. All we really have left is the big furniture, our bathroom supplies, clothing and towels. I, along with the girls are 100% on this move. But after so many months of just waiting, its become very real. And I've started to get a bit melancholy, thinking about what I'm leaving behind.

And Kipster, that has to be the sweetest thing I've ever read!

*Sigh.. That's my love!! Thanks baby for that vote of confidence, and loyalty.. I know that view will be sweet for me. I hate the goodbyes and I hate the "countdowns" till we see each other again. I have no regrets, and no backward glances.. and I know you know that

I am blessed as well with a man who understands in so many ways what I'm leaving behind, and how daunting this process is. He "gets it" and I'm so glad that he does. I know that will make the transition so much easier (that and a bag full of Coffee Crisps) - sorry baby.. i ate all the Toffee Crisps, so you'll just have to take me to the UK so you can try them yourself! hee hee..

And yes.. i am the most blessed girl on VJ hee hee

That is sweet of him

Just to tell you my fiance found a coffee crisp ( yeah the real one! ) in the CHicago suburbs the other day...its translated in english and spanish! Maybe they are finally seeing the good stuff and has started to import it from Canada!

I sit here with tears streaming down my face...oh my word!

Was just a week ago that I was going through the same thing. It seems surreal. It still does.

I was confused, and somewhat embarrassed to have the feelings I did, knowing how lucky I was, how truly blessed I was to have found my kindred spirit. At the same time, I cried so many tears for what I was leaving behind.

I did post about my feelings, and had such a wonderful empathetic response from other Canadian's here, that I know that's what got me through.

I think Kathyrn41 said it best when she described (not to quote) feelings of leaving, or giving up her Canadian identity. That hit me strongest.

Bring what you can to remind you of Canada and your life here before the new turn in your path in the USA. You can take the body out of Canada, but you can't take the Canada from your heart.

You've wanted this a long time...it's finally happening...embrace your new "home" and best wishes on this part of your journey.

Carla

the last week of packing was the worst for me. i'd moved mum into her new apartment, so it was me, some boxes for furniture, my bed and the hounds in the house. i felt like i had to let go of so much of my stuff and while stuff does not make a person, i felt like i had given up a lot.

the worst was having to leave some things i really wanted to take with behind as they wouldn't fit in the car. (brining some of that back next week!)

my surreal moment came the first evening after we crossed the border and were lying in bed (somewhere in Ohio i think). i just couldn't wrap my head around the fact that 9 months of form filling, waiting, interviews, packing and saying good bye were the past and i was with my sweets, moving forward headlong into a new life.

happy and safe travels to you.

k

My first surreal moment came when I was just 18. I can remember it like it was yesterday, even though its been 20 years now. I was sitting on the floor in my room at my parent’s house, just listening to some music and thinking, “This will be the last time I ever live here”. This was the house and room I had grown up in. This was the neighborhood I had been born into and had spent the past 18 years in. This was my world as I had known it, and it was all I had. I had just graduated from high school that summer and was enlisted in the US Navy. This was the day I was to leave and start my journey into the great unknown. This was the day I had to leave and go to Boot Camp.

Only a couple of months earlier, on the night of my high school graduation, I had come home from the graduation party and laid down on the couch in the living room in the dark and wondered where my life would take me. I wondered mostly whether I would find the love I was looking for. I never found it in high school, and now, I was getting ready to join the military, and who knows where I would find it then.

So there I was. And off I went into a strange new world that held who knows what.

So many times what kept me going was you my love, or more precisely, the dream of one day finding you and waking up next to you knowing I would never have to go back to The Day Before You. So many years passed spent at sea looking out over an empty ocean, just wanting to be with you. I pictured you and me together so many times, the walks we would take, the conversations we would have, and of course I saw you as beautiful in character as well as form. And so many nights in my rack I imagined that moment in my mind, what I would think and feel when I would finally wake up with you every morning, how surreal it would seem to me, lying next to you in our cozy bed as I reflected on how far I had traveled and all I had been through to find you. And then I would just roll over in my rack and wake up to another day at sea.

And then one Sunday evening, there you were, out of the blue. Only at the time, I didn’t know she would turn out to be an imposter. And 5 years later, she was out the door and on with her own life. And I was left with another surreal moment. Reflecting on where I had come, and now my dream was shattered.

And now here we are together my love….its you….and now I finally see the beautiful character, form and face of my beloved from a night on my graduation so long ago. You are the real one, because you are so tenderhearted, so loving, and so desirous to be with me. You are exactly the way I dreamed of you on so many nights at sea. You are so much more. I know that God loves me now because of you, and I know He loved me the night of my graduation, because He was there taking very careful notes that night. He was there every time I thought of you. And now He smiles.

Talk about surreal…

My darling.. you words are like medicine.. (ps we are going to get kicked out of this room baby for being so verbal).. I am blessed.. so blessed indeed.

Well after almost 10 years now living here, I still every so often get that surreal moment thinking, is this all really real? Am I really here?

My brother had that too even after 2 years living in Rhode Island, it still felt kind of weird and it really wans't real. He told me you will probably always have that feeling from time to time. So yeah, get used to it ha ha...

Even though it's been almost 3 years since I was "packing up", reading your post made it seem like yesterday. I remember finding it hard to decide what to pack, what to give away and what to throw out. With every box, the feelings of excitement at the prospect of my new life, and the feelings of sadness at what I was leaving behind, grew stronger and stronger.

My son had just recently moved out of our house in preparation of my moving to the U.S., and I used his old bedroom to store the boxes I had packed. Every time I took another packed box into his old bedroom, I felt a very big tug on my heart. We had lived there for 6 years together and I was going to miss him terribly, as well as my younger son and younger daughter who lived with their Dad nearby.

It was a very bittersweet feeling..... I was leaving so many people I adored behind, but at the same time, I was going to a new life with the most wonderful man I had ever met in my whole life.

I just remember thinking..... life's like that......

P.S. My daughter now lives with us, so I do have part of my "old life" near me!!!!!!

All of my stuff was packed up last July and put in storage at my friend's house. I remember it being exhausing at the time, mentally and physically, because I was also saying goodbye to my roommate and cousin. I was moving to the US of course and she was going home to Trinidad. I kept all the stuff that really mattered and took the opportunity to purge the junk that my pack-rat self had collected over the years.

Hardest of all though was leaving the school that I had worked at. Not only was the school my baby (it was a start-up project back in 2003) but some of the students I had known and watched grow for 4 years. They really were my extended family and it was quite emotional. Visiting and then leaving this month was also quite a teary event.

Regardless though, I know that this new life is one that I have chosen and a greater adventure than I would ever have thought possible. I'm loving the experience.

You will too.

Monique