The path of unknowns

As some might expect this post to be written by the new Mrs. Leger who is residing in France, I am unfortunately not able to say that, not the France part at least. The end of 2010 was pretty magical to say the least. James arrived, we spent Christmas together with my family and his family that are here in the states. It was as if the stars had aligned if only for a few weeks time. The day of the wedding was perfect! As a girl growing up you imagine what your wedding day will look like and how you will feel but this exceeded my dreams. I could feel the love and happiness all around James and I. The only thing that would have made it any more perfect was to have all of our family with us.

James and I spent the 3 days following our wedding trying to soak it all in. He left on January 3rd and the plan was to wait for the marriage license to be returned, submit it to the French government for them to issue their version of the marriage license, go to Chicago with this document and a few others to apply for the spouse visa, and be in France by March 6th. This would be the shortest time we would have to be apart and yet none of this has gone according to plan. James is back in France, I am still in the states. The French consulate has not issued their version of the marriage license and report that there is some form we missed filling out prior to the wedding(that no one told us about in all of our communication with the consulate and the local government in France that James spoke to). As a result of this we have been told that they can take up to a year to register our marriage. This presents a huge barrier as that document is needed to apply for the spouse visa.

As March 6th has come and gone, the plane ticket that was booked for that date has been moved to April. It is highly unlikely that anything else will be sorted out in the next month and so the next big decision is, do I go to France for 90 days to see if we can figure any of this out from there or at a minimum get to spend 90 days next to my husband? This of course entails many other decisions. Things like leaving my job, not being able to work in France without a visa, being able to financially make it with future employment being unknown, what to do after those 90 days are up? And then of course should we have to both appear at the consulate in Chicago that will require 2 airfares and the list goes on.

It seems familiar to be sitting in a spot of big decisions once again and not having a crystal ball to know which path to take. I would be lying if I said that I have remained calm through all of this. I mean how do you make it okay in your head (let alone your heart) that your husband is over 4000 miles away and you have to be apart due to paperwork and things that you thought were all figured out? I don't know what the "right" path is but I do know that only getting to spend 3 days with your husband isn't the right path either.

Tomorrow is James birthday, I should be there with him to celebrate! That was the plan. Instead I shipped a gift and will wish him a happy birthday through the computer screen. The only thing that can make that better is to believe that this is the last birthday I have to spend apart from him and be able to hold on to the fact that I have found my heart's match (that makes me one lucky person)!