Anyone who has experience with anything immigration related knows that everything, and by everything I mean EVERY SINGLE STEP of the process takes an EXCRUCIATING amount of time. From the moment you send in your first packet of forms, you wait. Aside from a notice that the Center of Immigration Services has received your paperwork, you don't hear anything until your petition is approved. In fact, they won't even talk to you about your file until six months has passed. Six months is an eternity when you're just waiting. I'd refresh my e-mail at LEAST 50 times a day, hoping that I'd finally hear something.
And then, exactly three months after CIS received our packet, I did.
I think my heart stopped for a second when I saw an email from "CRIS" in my inbox. Imagine refreshing your e-mail countless times a day for over a month, never to see anything new. I got to the point where I never expected it to be there; I was just refreshing out of habit! Then, there it was! I gasped audibly, and told all the girls in my office... who feigned interest (at that point they were already tired of hearing about B and how frustrated I was with CIS, I'm sure.)
I was so relieved to hear that our case was moving along because I've heard horror stories of files being stuck at CIS for years for no apparent reason. Despite our relatively speedy approval from CIS, I prepared myself for more waiting. It could take up to two months to receive an interview appointment, after all.
But, it was quite the opposite! I swear it was like our file had expedite flags all over it; it moved at lightning speed through the stages leading up to the Vancouver Consulate. A week after our approval from CIS, our case was in sitting on the desk of an immigration officer in Vancouver. And rather than waiting a month for an interview as we expected, we received an appointment date very quickly. As in, that-same-day quickly!
I knew everything was moving much faster than average, but it wasn't until this morning when I was updating my calendar at work that I realized, holy cow, B's interview is NEXT WEEK.
I am so incredibly excited, nervous, anxious and... well, overwhelmed by the fact that B is moving in with me in just a few short weeks.
October is going to be a heavy month for us. B and I will be ending our long distance relationship for good, our parents will meet each other for the first time, and we'll be legally married.
My life is about to completely change. And, while scary, I can honestly say that I've never been more excited.
So I leave you with this question, because it is definitely something that I've been thinking about lately: What was the best change in your life that was brought upon by moving in with your SO? Or, for those of you who've yet to take this step, what do you anticipate?
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