Deadline time.

First of all, thanks Sho. This is old news, a bit, but I got your donation and I really, really appreciate it.

Second, I am starting to formulate in my mind the possibility of leaving the country by January 2009. After weeks upon weeks of horrible arguments and despair I can only think that I can't survive like this for another year or even another half year.

So I've given myself January 15 as a deadline. That's the last day I'm going to wait, because past then it will be hard for me to apply for college here next Fall, too. And I really can't wait months and months longer. It's already been 4 years. It's more than enough. I need therapy and I need a sense of REAL accomplishment in my life for once.

If I leave Canada, though, I think it will be to never return. And I will very likely never seen my husband again. But there's nothing to be done. I have to choose to make my life better if no one else will.

I will always feel bitter if surviving has to mean leaving my marriage behind, but that's pretty much how bleak things are for me now. You may ask "why?" but it's just plain not going to be possible right now for Jon to immigrate the other way. I can't take care of him and sponsor him the way he did me, not if I can't even go outside the apartment most days. I am pretty certain I won't earn my own money for a long time. I may even end up just admitting myself into an asylum if I can't make myself do anything else.

Besides that, I don't think Jon really wants to take care of himself, either. Without me there he will probably let himself waste, not even bother to try and get a job any more, or anything. For better or for worse, he feels I'm the only worthy cause worth living for, and if I leave that way it basically means to him that he failed me. So... our parting in January, if it comes to pass, will likely be final. I won't have the money to even visit him, nor he me.

I don't know if it will be better where I'll be going in that case, because the only place I'll really have TO go is my parents' house. I can't imagine going back there a failure, but what else is there for me if I can't make things work up here? I probably shouldn't have even canceled my American health insurance, that was stupid of me. Now I will have to figure out how I will have health care AT ALL in the U.S.

It's going to be difficult, but life here is difficult, too. I either have the choice of stagnating for an indefinite period of time, or going back to my existence of forcing myself to do things because I have to.

I wish it could be different. :( I wish I could have had good counsel during immigration process, and gotten it done in 8 months to a year like normal. But wishing that doesn't make it happen. Wishing doesn't bring back 4 years, it doesn't make my documents appear out of nowhere, it doesn't make my phone line work and it doesn't bring me the therapy and medication I need.

There is only one thing I can do if the government and even Jon's own errors (which he continually admits to and I hate that because I know he wants me to blame him) continue to fail me and leave me waiting indefinitely for progress. I have to be the one to leave. And I hate that because it's basically saying "time to give up now, now that you waited all that time for nothing and you've nowhere to go, even though you know you can't earn your own money, even though you'll have no health insurance over there EITHER, but you have to either make it work or go die in a street somewhere." I despise that after all the harm that's been done to me I have to be the one to make a decision I DON'T want, purely for my survival.

But that's the one thing that nothing in life has taken from me. My desire to survive AND my desire to create. So I will live through it one way or another, as sad as it makes me. I just don't know Jon will. I can't even imagine what I'll feel like, walking away from my husband of four years knowing I will likely never see him again, and he will likely die, or want to.

Am I just being extreme? Is there another solution? One where I can keep my sanity and keep the one I love, one where I have a future to look forward to?

I'm afraid of the answer I will get when January 15 comes by.

In the meantime I have at least a couple things I promised myself I'd do before going. That being: getting my transcripts sent to Concordia (with extra copies to me), and also trying to call immigration myself at least once to talk personally about my situation as an immigrant. All this time Jon's talked for me, and I want at least once to speak for myself. Not to get angry or accusatory or anything like that. Just so... they could hear my voice, at least once... and maybe, just maybe I can arrange things so I can at LEAST give Concordia a shot in March.

I wonder if anyone has ever felt like they're connected with someone like I feel I am with Jon. I feel like, in this life, we were cursed somehow to fail at finding happiness together, but... I know that I was happy with him once. I know he's the only man for me. I'm always so interested in cycles and reincarnation because I feel like I've met him in my past and I will meet him again and again in my future. Just like the characters we write about.

Maybe if nothing else, that's all I have left to cling to. Even if I have to walk away from a failed life in Canada... maybe there will be that string of fate that will lead me back to him. Like it always was and will be.

It's at least a nice thought to have, even if it's not true.