Well, Life has once again decided to throw me a curve ball. My darling husband has an offer for a new job –in Australia.
He’s been hell bent on finding a way to live abroad. He hasn’t really even cared where. Last year, right around this same time in fact, he was trying to move us to Chile. That didn’t work out. They never really got back to him on the job.
For which I was both grateful and sad. I wasn’t psyched about moving to a place where I couldn’t even speak the language, but it was also thrilling to think of living somewhere else.
Kind of like this opportunity. I’ve always wanted to visit Australia. Crocodile Dundee started it. Then I read Mutant Message Down Under and saw A Town Like Alice. That cinched it. Australia seemed amazing. Definitely some place I’d like to see someday.
But to live there? Well, sure. If I didn’t have one small problem. Actually, three. My fur kids.
Australia is a long way to go. Two of the three are elderly. Mr. Meow is actually in terrible shape. He’s still not quite on track after the latest feeding tube incident.
Worse, I was reading about the logistics of moving pets from the United States to Australia. Not only is it expensive, it’s a long process. It takes 150 days from start to finish, including a 30 day quarantine period.
Um, yeah. That’s not going to happen. I can’t be away from my pets for 30 days! Are you freaking kidding me?
Yet, I know Wayne wants to take this job so bad. I don’t even know if he cares about the job so much, but, like I said before, he’s desperate to live abroad. Somewhere. Anywhere. This would be a way to do it.
I’m much more open to the idea of Australia than I was to Chile, but no one would ask a parent to quarantine a regular child. (Although some might think some kids are in need of quarantining, and some parents might actually like the break.) To me, furry as they may be, my two cats and a dog are my children. I hate even leaving them over the weekend, much less for extended trips.
Murph and Mr. Meow are up there in age. Tab gets wigged out just driving three miles in the car to the vet. If they survived the trip, it might not be graciously. I can’t bear to think of causing them life-threatening mental and physical stress like that.
Yet, it would be exciting to go live in a different country and experience a different culture. And, oh, the sites we could see in Australia!
But then I think of that quarantine…if they even survived to get to that stage. Then I wonder if they’d survive the quarantine. Would they think I’d abandoned them? I think visiting is permitted, but would they wonder why I kept leaving without them? Probably. Could I bear their sad eyes every time I had to leave them each day? Probably not.
It’s hard for me to say no. I told Wayne the other day if it came through, though, my vote is no. Even though I hate denying him such a chance. Sometimes it’s just not the right time for things. This is one of those times.
Wow. Wayne may have to do with a relocate across the US. Overseas, neat as it sounds, would be hard. How would the animals, and you, take it? I’m with you. Too hard to do… for now?
Before cancer I was always one to think we’d have another chance to do something if the time wasn’t right at the moment. Since cancer I now realize opportunities might not come back around –or we might not be around when they do. That’s why I’m struggling so much saying “NO!” I mean, my vote is no, but it tears me up to say it because I know how much it means to Wayne. If any of this makes any sense…feel like I’m rambling, as usual…
I’m with you on the quarantine. I couldn’t bear to put my pets in lockup for a month or more.
But perhaps there’s a workaround. When we move to the UK, we will be getting our pets tested (once 6 months before the move and once right before we leave). If they’re disease-free, quarantine will be waived.
You were the 1st person I thought of when this all came up because you were the only one I’ve ever known to have already checked into moving abroad with pets. He ended up passing on it. It would not only cost us too much to move over and get established, but the pet thing…I was adamant about not quarantining them or putting them through the stress of a move 1/2 way around the world. When we’re empty nesters we’ll have to revisit the living abroad thing again.