April 2018

As they say, what ever can go wrong…did.

The accountant didn’t receive the tax paperwork and it had to be recreated the week before taxes were due. We normally copy everything before we send it but we’re so crunched with all the details flying at us that we didn’t do it this year. Of course G had to recreate it all, asking for copies of all the documents that were needed and it took about a week for him to finish it. There was also a screw up with our mail, voter cards and absentee ballot forms that took a week to straighten out.

The landlords had a new dishwasher delivered but the electric cord wasn’t long enough. This in itself was not insurmountable but the ripple effect was the space of time lost by both the owners and ourselves when none of us had much to give. We had to go through the process twice and burned two afternoons doing so.

Social Security paperwork was an issue for one of us and not the other, which ended up requiring 3 two hour waiting stints in the offices.  Medicare gave conflicting information which had our healthcare providers delay, retract and reprint cards. We were having a last luncheon with our gang and of course I was shortsighted enough to choose a complicated dish to bring. Yep, not operating with all the brain cells at this point.

We had gone through three leasing bids on apartments in France. The visa required at least 5 months to prove we were serious enough for a year’s visa. As we were declined because the span of 5 months was not available, we began to encounter summer vacationers booking for a couple of weeks, poking further holes in the span we required. We finally got a lease lined up but the paperwork came twice without signatures, which were not usable. Third time was a charm but the wait was nerve wracking.

Plus all of the people coming out of the woodwork, wanting to get together one last time, even if we haven’t seen them for a year or more. We also would love to see everyone to say goodbye but the last two months are not the ones to pick. Then G finally saw the amount of work ahead and became overwhelmed. He had not let go of some final ties to work and began to understand my insistence that this process become his focus.

Throw on top – the French lessons, cleaning, laundry and tying up a variety of last minute small account closures. It seemed every issue was multifaceted and difficult to address, plus some pieces easy to miss. Things had become complicated enough that we had resorted to posting our daily and weekly calendar on the wall for a quick visual check. More things were getting added than things were being taken off the wall.

We had Uhaul reservations with a trailer for the car.  We were attending to last appointments in every direction, dinners out together and alone with a variety of people.

Every day I ended up laying down quietly for a 30 minute break to catch my breath and clear my head. We were both tangled in the details and wondered what happened to the web headlines that promised – Live Overseas, It’s EASY.

I began to pack the winter clothes in the suitcases we would be checking in, photographing as I went, creating detailed lists to go with each suitcase. We’d never traveled with more than one carry-on suitcase a piece. This time we were checking in five – one was behemoth. According to the airline website, we were allowed two check in pieces each at a limit of 35 lbs and could pay extra for another no more than 70 lbs.  It just boggled my mind.

At month end, our wall was an absolute zoo of stickies and we had piles of things everywhere. Organized piles, but piles nonetheless. We were living off paper plates, our refrigerator and pantry were bare, food was quick-fix or pre-prepared.

The appointment at the consulate was on the 1st of May, leaving us with a target date of 5/15. But like a spy or mystery novel, it won’t tie up until the end and the suspense might just kill us.