Checklist for Change

In January 2.5 long years of disconnect, intense emotional and financial stress and exhaustion came to a head. It wasn’t the foreclosure looming over our home, or the baby turned toddler that unexpectedly roughed up the edges of our marriage, the final straw was medical bills from a broken wrist in May from a fateful fall off the monkey bars at recess. In short, something that could have and should have been covered by the insurance policy we pay thousands of dollars for was going to cost more than I could wrap my head around; it was going to bleed over into another calendar year and continue to cost more out of pocket because of the lovely thing known as a deductible. I found myself pressuring orthopedists to make quicker decisions in December that were not able to be made because sometimes you just have to wait for bones to grow before you can decide what needs to be done with them. In a rare moment of clarity I expressed to Sean that I no longer wanted to do this. By this I meant work 4 jobs between two parents to make ends meet when one thing like a broken arm can take it all away. I meant I no longer wanted to work so much to support our kids that we didn’t get to see them or each other. I hate not having time to enjoy raising and watching them grow. For the first time in what felt like a long time, we both agreed, neither of us wanted to stay where we are, and both of us are aligned in our desire to make a change. We made a list, said list can be seen in an earlier post, “somewhere slower.” In the process of making a list I revisited a truth I have known and had to relearn many times, the first step in making something happen is simply to make the decision you are going to make a change. So many times I get stunted or stalled in the logic, but the truth is moving to another country is just a more complex algorithm of choosing to move to another state or even a new house. Once the decision is made, you just have to make a list of what needs to be done. For us that looked like figuring out how to work in another country as medical professionals including licensure, requirements, and researching the differences in roles. I am forever grateful to have found continental nurse in England as they have been holding my hand through the process of getting my UK nursing license. The second step was figuring out the type of visa that best suits our situation and needs. There are many reasons I feel lucky to be married to Sean, the newest one, his Commonwealth citizenship and the fact that I can ride his coattails into an ancestry visa since his sweet grandmother is from Scotland. Third, telling out children, let me just acknowledge the response was luke warm to frigid depending on the child, and the most excited one is really only in it because she is hoping for a pet bunny once we settle.

Our original pre pandemic timeline included allowing for the one unified request from our older three kids to finish out the school year. We have this year a grade 6, grade 4, and grade 2 school aged children as well as a toddler. As elementary school in our area ends at grade 4, it felt like a reasonable request and the process of acquiring my license is lengthy anyways. This was the plan before COVID 19. I started by opening a request with the Nursing and Midwifery Counsel and started begging the Tennessee board of nursing to communicate with them. This sometimes meant spending hours on the phone or sitting in the office refusing to leave until I was seen, but in the end it was all worked out and I scheduled to take the first half of my exam in March. Due to what we all now just lovingly call Corona Virus, my first exam was cancelled and rescheduled 4 times, but I finally took and passed my CBT exam in May. The last hurdle in being employable in the UK is to fly to England and take my OSCE exam. Currently, it feels like the world has changed a million ways since last January when we decided to start this process, in many ways it has only made me more prepared to go. My biggest concerns and fears have been around our children adjusting to a new place, new culture, and smaller more intimate spaces as homes are smaller there and they will for a time, only know each other. When we went into lock down it was like a mock trial run. I was relieved to watch them all lean in to each other. That is not to say there has not been sibling fights and high tensions, but I have watched them all band together, I know they can do this.

I am no longer sure when we will leave. Taking the OSCE will require me to fly in to the UK and quarantine 14 days before the exam, absorbing the cost of that trip as well as the cost of the exam is another hurdle we are trying to clear. I no longer feel we have to wait for school because our kids are not physically in school, but I do not want to break our work to our kids either. We are in the wait, and that is okay for right now. We have started to tick the boxes on our checklist for change.