[andersonclan]

Does anyone else feel that they're living in limbo. First initial flurry getting EOI together - then the long wiat from being selected to receiving ITA. Another flurry getting ITA information together - but not knowing what is going to happen.

House sale looks like its going through - but will we get the OK befoer we move and can go straight there or will we have to rent. If we get - where will we go? Will we get jobs?

It's all really exciting really - but it would just be great to have some idea of timing and that we definitley will be going.

I've still been reading all the posts over the last few weeks - but have felt like a voyeur - feeling I had nothing useful to add.

Reading this back - maybe I'm just cracking up!

Margaret

[Diny]

Margaret - I know EXACTLY what you mean.

We've been living in limbo now for what seems like months and months. We're being held up by the sale of the house. Yes we have an offer on it at the moment, but as you know - anything could happen.

Not being able to give an answer when people ask when you're leaving. Not wanting to 'start anything' (such as join clubs, buy anything new etc)
because you don't know how long you'll be hanging around.

It's maddening!!!!!!!!!

Maybe what we're experiencing is 'the lull before the storm'.

By the way ..... NEVER feel that you have nothing to contribute to this forum. Sharing your thoughts, worries and experiences - no matter what stage you're at - will certainly help others. I for one can tell you how 'comforting' (for the want of a better word) it is to hear that other folks are going through the exact same emotions as I am. If it wasn't for this forum confirming the fact that 'I am not alone' .... I think I would have seriously thought about throwing in the towel at times.

Keep posting, it's good to talk. (Who was it who said that).

Diny

[Iain]

We seem to have been in limbo for an age as well. It's all coming together now, hopefully. 1 week until we complete on the house sale, handed the ITA in last Monday. Still feels like we have a mountain to climb though.

It'll be nice just to get on the plane and heave a big sigh of relief! Of course, in reality, that's when the real hassle starts.... :roll: :laugh

[Glenda]

Hi Margaret,

Yes, it is frustrating. Many of us deal with it by coming onto these forums and learning as much as they can about NZ. We are perhaps lucky in that we know when we are going, but hubby will have to come back a few weeks later as the house sale will not be completed and his business not entirely wound up. I'm keeping myself amused typing letters closing down bank/building society accounts etc. post-dated mid May. (That sounds a bit sad. :? :laugh )

Congrats on having a purchaser for your house :hopeso as there are many folks stuck in the UK because the house has not sold. :(

Keep posting, even if they are inane posts like mine. :roll: ;) If you see something informative or useful, let us all know.

[Nicola]

Hi Margaret

Know exactly what you mean, and I have been trying to put it into words for weeks. We are still waiting to hear about our ITA.

We are, I hope, in the final stages of decorating the house. Everytime I finish one room the next looks dingy compared to the fresh paint, or one of the kids manages to move furniture and scrape some more walls. I think we may have a buyer for our house, before we have put it on the market, but I do not want to count chikens.

Keep putting things off as Diny says, there are some major decisions that need made if we do not get PR. So feel as if we are just floating in free fall at them moment, quite soon we will have to pull that cord and see if the parachute is there for a soft landing.

Please do keep posting, it is good to here from others going throught the same experiences.

[MB]

Margaret,

Great thread. Thanks.

We're at the stage of waiting for the interview (documents seem okay says nice case officer) which will be in person when our local NZIS representative gets back to the US. So we probably have 2-4 weeks wait for that.

What we're trying to do is to focus on how good it is to have reached the stage we have reached. This "blessings counting" can even start as early as when one realizes that one has enough points to apply in the first place! And from there, every step is worth celebrating (hic! :laugh )

It was difficult yesterday when we found out that what seemed likely to be a quick phone-based process would likely be an in-person interview, with another wait to go along with it. But we've decided to put our energies into trying to make our case better and better, and generally use the time in NZ-directed ways such as making tentative choices about what to sell, etc.

Again, thanks. A terrific and honest topic to have started. :nice1

Cheers,
Matt and family.

[MB]

Another very valid source of pride (or at least consolation! :laugh ) in playing the waiting game is that, as has been suggested on this forum before, it is part of the 'migrant experience'. Not only that -- i.e., not only has the experience started already for us all -- but waiting is positively useful in helping one to get the kinds of stamina and adaptability that migrants need.

I reckon that also applies to the other challenging aspects of this whole process: such as difficult conversations with family and friends; the perseverance needed to secure paperwork; the research and mental projection involved in making decisions about where to settle, etc., etc.

Mrs. MB and I have had a little experience in this 'cos we're from different countries and have experienced settling in each other's nation for years at a time. So, for what it's worth, although all of us here on this forum are probably finding parts of the immigration process a big challenge, I reckon it is all very useful as we all try to make our plans and get ready for NZ. So that's perhaps cause to embrace the trying times!

Cheers,
:nice1 Matt.

[lindajax]

SSSSSSSSSSSSOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO been there.
It DOES pass- we are here to prove it!
Linda x

[Jennie & Rob]

Great sympathies with you also. I feel that we have been in limbo ever since we first posted our expression of interest last year. It has been at least 8 months of not starting anything, renewing things, joining clubs, etc. Caught out by this state of limbo though :wah

I had not filled our oil tank for hot water and heating or gas bottles for cooking as I kept thinking, house will sell soon, we will get our PRs. We ran out of both on Thursday and I had 2 very cold days with two small children. My own fault....

Still , as I read many houses in NZ have no heating, maybe it was valuable practice.

Keep your chin up, it won't be much longer.

[Diny]

Actually Margaret, thinking about it. Limbo can be quit a comfortable and safe place to be.

We have recently accepted an offer on the house, once/if/hoping it goes through we're off. Everything else is done and dusted, got the PR stamps, shipping co standing by .... the whole 9 yards.

Now things are looking like we're getting to the end of our time in limbo we've been taken over by a new emotion. I can only describe it as something akin to panic, mixed with abit of frustration, sadness, uncertainty and a heap of elation.

Why do we do it to ourselves eh? :uhoh

Diny

[Danpoll]

Its a illness that comes and goes. It starts with a attack of self confidence in the EOI stage that supresses itselfs upon the ITA, It then appears with stress and anxiety when gathering your dossier of evidence. Paranoia and self confidence attack again while awaiting for decision. After a period of jubilation and fearfull anticipaton the task ahead starts to disesapear. There are days when you don't think about nz and there are days that you want to go and dont want to go. you spend your life cursing the system and then sentimentally start to watch it from a far as you know that your comming to the end of your life in this country and a new life will begin soon. I think the wait is better as it can only but prepare you, I say this on the eve of potentially exchanging and flying out on the 22nd of this month so I am now in the wind down procedures stage and its a nice feeling.

Dan

[Lil]

I'm on the wind down phase too, but know where you are all coming from. It's as if I have not had a life for the past year, every effort and thought has been concentrated on getting us to NZ. Every conversation is centred around NZ and our state of progress / or non-progress for huge chunks of time. It's like we have shaken all the crap out of our life until there is nothing left.

I am so looking forward to starting out again - building back a life, finding a house that I want to live in, a new job, buying a new car and making new friends. I know things won't be easy but I really do feel something that I've never felt before, that we are starting over with a clean slate, the decisions we make and the path that we take from now on will shape the rest of our life.

It has only been 10 weeks since we packed up and left our house and it feels like a lifetime, these past few weeks have been the longest weeks of my life, literally just waiting and going through the motions.

[Carol]

I feel like I'm in a permanent departure lounge. now that's something to look forward to once you leave "Limbo"


And I've been here nearly 9 years!!


That said - 2 out of 3 of my kids call this home.
The other one resides in the departure lounge with me.

[MB]

Ha ha ha ha! Genuine, hot-off-press quote from my wife talking to me, shopping in Office Depot office-supplies store, about 3 hours ago:

"What I really want is a stapler. But I don't really want to get one if we're going to leave for NZ..."

And you know what? We were both nodding seriously, as though she was mooting the idea of building an extension to the house or something.

:laugh :laugh :laugh :laugh

Cheers,
Matt.

[Diny]

"What I really want is a stapler. But I don't really want to get one if we're going to leave for NZ..."

And you know what? We were both nodding seriously, as though she was mooting the idea of building an extension to the house or something.


Oh I like that one Matt - and I can really relate to it.

Our eldest son has gone through abit of a growth spurt (I'm sure that's not the medical name for it). His school trousers cut him in half around the middle and were almost 'half mast' when it came to length.

I refused to buy him any new uniform, knowing that he will never get his full wear out of it. Poor kid started looking like one of the Marx Brothers. Then - friend to the rescue - she was 'throwing out' some school trousers that her son had grown out of. Thankfully she threw them my way. I was delighted and gave them to Fergie. He is NOT delighted. Talk about going from one extreme to the other, his 'new' pair need gathering in with a belt and I've had to cut lord knows how much off the bottom.

I see it as a sensible. money saving act. He sees it as socially crippling punishment. I find it funny - he does not.

I hope this sale goes through for both our sakes :nice1

Diny

[MB]

Diny - LOL! :laugh :nice1
Get that house sold. You could throw in a free stapler.

ROFL :laugh :laugh

Matt.

[shagen]

Everyone is so right!

We call it the emotional roller coaster. Everyday we have a new emotion to deal with and so many "what if's". There's the house, the family, freinds we are leaving behind, things we are so fond of.

[Nicola]

Can this be compared to the experiece at a theme park ride. Where they deliberatly have queues, because they heighten the whole experience. Standing there waiting to go watching people go screaming past you on the ride, then staggering away looking slightly green! But even though I have a fear of heights, and scream loudly to the embaressment of the kids, I do not regret any of the experiences I have had.

:hopeso that the New Zealand experience will be the same.

Thanks to you all for sharing your feelings, makes me feel slightly less silly. :nice1 :nice1

[jensf]

We are in limbo-land all right.
Got our AIP in September 04, wanted to put house on the market and friends said instantly that they would have it of us.
So they put theirs on the market without any success and last week told us that they are not interested anymore. :(
We played save anyhow and put ours on the market just before Christmas. In hindsight should have done so earlier.
Interest was a lot better and we had some viewings, even second ones, but nobody so far has put in an offer.
I am sure you know the feeling just before somebody comes to visit. You always think that they are very interested and you hope for an offer.
Then the anti-climax when the agent rings the next day just to say that they did not like this or the other.
Then you follow all the news on the housing front, prices down or up, by what percentage point, then you wonder what the BankoE will do with the interest base rate. Then you do the same exercise with the BNZ and watch the exchange rate go up and down.
Currently rather down than up and you try to figure out how much money you would have lost if you had sold the house now.

etc etc etc.

Yep, definitely limbo-land.

Jens

[andersonclan]

Thanks everyone - it really does help to feel that you're not alone! At the moment as well as thinking of what not to buy - we're thinking of things that we need to buy to take with us - my food processor needs a new bowl - the tumble dryer a new handle, etc, etc.

SOmetimes you let the little day dreams run away with what it will be like ewhen you get there - but reign yourself in - in case it's tempting fate .

We brought a blood pressure monitor a few weeks ago (after medicals showed blood pressure high!) - I think I'll need to monitor more regulalry - it certainly is a rollercoaster at the moment.

Thanks again to everyone

Margaret

[adamsat]

I agree with the comments about feeling in limbo and the rollercoaster ride. It really seems to be one high as you get through another stage in the process, followed by the low of trying to get over the next hurdle (how many metaphors can I mix in one sentence?) :laugh

Being over in NZ at the moment it seems that much nearer to happening, but then I'll be back home in few days, back to waiting for the house to sell, worrying about what I'll do if someone actually offers me a job (I know, I can wish for these problems though can't I?), worrying about whether we should just come out to Christchurch or whether we really should consider Wellington, worrying about whether to send the passports off for the PR stamps right away, or wait for as long as we can to buy some more time just in case. :(

I hope this doesn't come across as a whinge, as that not what it is. I know we are lucky to have got PR approved so relatively painlessly, it's just that I want to be here permanently, with the family, NOW!

To steal someone else’s tag line, perhaps I should have more patience.

[Diny]

whether to send the passports off for the PR stamps right away, or wait for as long as we can to buy some more time just in case

Andy

Just to go off at a slight tangent, but picking up on the above comment. When I was granted PR I got the standard 'instructions' telling me that passports wouldn't be stamped until migrant levy has been paid, and I was to allow 4 - 6 weeks for return of said passports.

NZIS London already had the passports, so I e-mailed my case officer with my credit card details and asked them to 'do their stuff'.

The passports arrived by recorded delivery less than 48 hours later.

Just because this happened to me doesn't mean it'll be the same for everybody, but maybe it's worth bearing in mind when working our your timing.

Good luck !!!

Diny