The Month of Waiting

Moving Past the Board

The month of August has been grueling for me. Last week I finally took down the project poster board because we seemed to be stuck. For days on end nothing changed on the board. Every morning I would look up and see our "To Spain" project items with nothing to do.

Taking the board down definitely made me feel better, although I have to say I thought by now we'd have more items in storage and less stuff in our duplex. This is not the case. We only have a minimal amount of items sold and boxed up. Considering our rental in Spain starts on September 15th, this is very odd and upsetting to the planner in me.

Moving Forward Feels Good

All in all, this week has been a good week for me. Thank goodness! I was able to move some things forward and that felt good. This week we got our permanent US address set up, I mailed our 30 day notice to the landlord and Nick is enrolled in his new school.

This is the most movement I've had since before our consulate appointment. I have spent weeks reaching out to people on the Consulate's approved list of translators because we need one at our September 7th appointment. I've felt useless as not one of them is available to help us.

And with the Consulate office notary out on vacation for the entire month of August, there hasn't been any way of knowing what we can do to satisfy the requirement on the 7th.

I've spent many moments stressing out about the requirement but it hasn't been helpful. So there came a point in time, about 10 days ago, I completely let go of it all.

Activity Around the World

To make August more interesting, Barcelona was attacked and Hurricane Harvey blasted through the Texas coastline. Hurricane Harvey parked himself on top of Houston for days, shutting down the Consulate office for a few days.

With many of Houston's residents displaced and roads closed, we have no idea what we face going into next week. For all we know, we may not have an appointment next Thursday.

Regardless of what happens, I will feel better because whatever news we get means we are back in correspondence and back in the game again.

I notice as I write this there is an underlying level of tension in my body. I think it is due to the fact that someone expects us to move into their AirBNB on the 15th. I don't like being late to appointments or canceling agreements at the last minute so the thought of not arriving on our arrival date makes me very uneasy.

Without plane tickets to Barcelona and the Power of Attorney document signed, it doesn't seem in this moment we will be there on the 15th and I will have to come to peace with that fact.

Learning Patience

Speaking of peace, I've learned a whole lot about patience this month. I have learned through this entire process that I had some more levels of patience, (and faith), to learn.

And without the distraction of doing something for the project, I was able to lean in and embrace some very uncomfortable moments. It wasn't easy but I feel I am a better person for going through these small dark nights of the soul. I am glad I had the time to self reflect and apply a deeper level of patience in daily life with Nick and John, too.

One of the goals for my spiritual journey I've had for many years has been to embrace the unknown better. I used to try to control as much as possible so as not to feel anxiety or "out of control".

Looking back though, I think I've accomplished at least a level of peace about the options we have before us and that is success because they are not what I planned at all.

The Spain Project has also helped me learn there are only certain things I can control and the others are best to leave alone, (sorry, Engineer-Project-Manager-Problem-Solving-Self).

Learning to Walk in Faith

I've always wanted a better balance between walking in faith and doing the action steps required to make a dream come true. So this past month helped me learn that the final word on "when a dream comes to fruition" is usually up to the universal forces.

I've learned we must be content in knowing we've done our part and be able to embrace what comes next, in its own time.

I am grateful today because with the long pause in the Spain project, we've also had time to discuss our options as a family. It's given us a chance to "choose Spain all over again," and we've decided that we will go to Spain even if our visas are not approved.

Next Steps

So here is what we know. We know that one visa application has gone through and they are waiting for status on the other two. Our best guess is that John's has been approved. It would make the most sense that his is approved as we are using most of his income to verify our requirements.

August has wrapped up. Yay! Without a project end date, we are doing the best we can to go on with our life in Austin. And given the enormous impact of the hurricane on Houston, we are grateful that the hurricane only minimally impacted our home city.

With Nick enrolled in his international online school, I feel like things will start moving along again. He starts this coming Wednesday.

He's done the orientation and we've received his materials, which makes us all feeling good and excited about him starting school here in Austin rather than wait for Spain, as we had originally planned on doing.

I continue to work towards rolling out the next phase of my online business, too. Working with such a great team of people to do this has definitely given me something to look forward to.

All in all, we can be proud of our efforts. Our life here is beginning to look like we already live in Spain, less stuff, Nick in school and John working at a job he loves. That is definitely progress we can all be proud of!