In 2008 my then wife and I had just graduated from ASU and had plans to further her education at the University of London. She had been accepted into a highly competitive and prestigious masters college there and we had been scrimping and saving every penny to afford the trip and establish ourselves. We each had different jobs and things we were suppposed to be doing to prepare for the trip and one of her jobs was to get our visas in order.
In October of that year, after packing up our entire lives and saying goodbye to our life in Arizona we got on a plane and flew from Phoenix to New York and then from New York to London. When we arrived in London, going through customs at Heathrow we learned that our visas were done incorrectly and our admittance into the country had to be put under revue since we declared we'd be planning on staying for longer than 6 months.
And so began what was one of the longest and most uncomfortable moments of our lives. We were photographed and fingerprinted and then detained in a waiting area for around 12 hours while they decided what to do about us. During the period of time we were fed and government officials did check in with us from time to time to make sure we were being taken care of. So I can't say we were treated inhumanely, still it was uncomfortable and stressful to learn that the new life you had scrimped and saved for might not happen.
Sure enough, after waiting for 12 hours and being awake and traveling for over 24, we were informed that we would not be allowed into the country and that the Brittish tax payers would be flying us back to New York. It wasn't much later that we boarded a Virgin Atlantic flight to JFK. It would be another 6 hours before we landed in New York City and by then it was close to midnight and the 2 of us were utterly defeated. With thousands of dollars left in our bank account we had no problem checking into a Hilton close to the airport where we slept for the first time in nearly 2 days.
Mandy's heart was broken. The amount of time and money it would take to fix the visas and fly back to the UK was beyond both our stamina and our budget. My wife was so depressed and defeated she couldn't even bare to tell anyone the news so the next day we decided to add another night at the Hilton to recoup, and I called everyone to give them the news and inform them that all questions and communications would go through me. If my wife is too upset to talk to anyone than I was going to make sure that everyone knew who they should expect to speak to.
All I wanted was for her to be happy and so I asked what she wanted. She said that she wanted to go home to Oklahoma. Looking at her, all broken hearted I couldn't deny her. So without any thought or arguement I just said "Okay." I booked 2 tickets to Tulsa for the next day and we went and stayed with her parents. With a comfortable nest egg we were able to keep paying our bills and I quickly got a job at Enterprise. In a few more weeks we flew back to Phoenix to collect Charley and the rest of our belongings and then with the help of my brother Jared and Travis, drove back to Oklahoma and move into our apartment we had just gotten there.
All in all, living there took its toll on us and 2 years later Travis was driving me right back to Arizona but the like everything in life, it was an experience. One that I learned from and one that helped shape who I am today. I'll be honest, if I could do it all again knowing what I know now I might have done things a little differently, but that's life....it's what we make of it.
And that's the story of how I ended up living in Oklahoma for 2 years.
No comments:
Post a Comment