Damn, I should either get better at updating this thing or abandon it altogether.
So much has changed since I last posted.
Oh god, I just looked. It was November! From reading that post, I can tell you that, yes, so much has changed. So much, except the one thing I was hoping would.
My ankle.
It is still horribly injured. I managed to convince the NHS to finally do an MRI - this took place in the middle of February (almost a full 7 months since the accident happened). I got the results at the end of February, and they weren't good. Two ligaments and a tendon were stretched and thinned out. The doctor said they wouldn't heal on their own and would be referring me to a surgeon to see if surgery would even help. Meanwhile, I'm still in agony every day. The consultation with the surgeon was scheduled for April 22nd - two months away. I never made it to that appointment.
If you follow me on Twitter, you probably already know what happened after but I'll explain here for those who don't know.
My husband and I decided to move back to Colorado.
That's right! After a year and half of planning, test taking (CPA exam, so I could find work easier), visa getting (me), and job obtaining (me) we decided to throw in the towel just 7 months after we arrived. Just typing that out seems pretty drastic. I left a REALLY good job in the US to make this move happen. We spent so much money to make this move happen - between the CPA exam prep course, the CPA exam itself, and the visa. We left behind our home, sold all of our beloved belongings, left our friends and various other things we loved to make this move happen. And then we only give it 7 months. I feel really ashamed about this. I kept thinking that if we just gave it a little more time things would get better. They never did. I can't speak for my husband, but I was miserable from the moment we landed.
The fact that my right ankle was broken when we arrived was a huge hindrance. It meant that my husband couldn't earnestly look for work since he had to drive me to my job, which was over an hour away.
The ankle issue itself was a huge factor for leaving. It meant that I couldn't work full-time in the office because it had to be elevated most of the time. Before breaking my ankle, I had arranged with my new employer to work from home three days a week. So, to start with I was working in the office for my required two days a week while I waited for me to learn the job. After a month I knew what I was doing and waited for the online system to be implemented. Unfortunately, this never happened because my employer never took the time to make this happen. When month after month would drag by and nothing would be done, I got really frustrated. It was a horrible office. My desk was up a very narrow, very steep set of stairs - which was nowhere near ideal for my disabled self. So my desk was moved to the trash room. That's right! I had to sit next to weeks worth of trash while I worked. It was horrible, I dreaded going to work. But I did my two days, week after week, hating every minute of it.
If I wasn't at work, I was at home with my foot up unable to do much of anything since a pair of crutches makes even the most basic household chores almost impossible. Sure, my husband did what he had to to make sure we were fed and clothed. But that was about it. We weren't living in England, we were surviving.
There were times I missed what we had left behind so much I couldn't breath.
Every now and then my husband would voice his frustration with the situation and insist we return to Colorado. I wish now that I had taken him seriously the very first time he said it back in August. I kept saying we had to give it more time, that it would get better. I even said that once my ankle was better, everything would be fine. Little did I know that no matter how long I waited my ankle would never heal on it's own.
So, I was working less than part-time and my husband wasn't working at all. Yet we had all of the regular expenses a family of four would still have - housing, food, gas, etc. We were running through our savings at an alarming rate. In January, I had to cash out the only retirement we had just so we could make sure we had enough to live on.
The week I got the check from my retirement account my husband said we should use it to move ourselves back to Colorado since at this point our options were doing that or using every last penny of it until it ran dry to live in England. And then where would we be? Penniless in a place we both hated.
Since that option didn't sound too appealing to either of us, we made the decision to move back.
Because of what I do, it was best if I came back as soon as possible to try to find work. So, I left England on March 5 and was employed by April 1. My husband and the kids got here on April 4. (As a side note, because I came back without the rest of my family the rumors were flying - was I getting divorced? Were the kids staying with my husband in England?) That month without my family was really hard, though.
Is my ankle fixed? Fuck no. But I have a job (another story for another day), my husband has a job, and we're slowly getting our life back on track. We have health insurance, so my ankle will get fixed sooner here than in England.
We really screwed up our credit by walking away from the houses (our personal residence and our rental unit), but we're slowly working on trying to fix that. The rental unit is a lost cause, but we might be able to stay in our house. You guys, leaving England was a really good decision. I've been so happy since we got back. If I could turn back time and realize what a stupid decision it was to leave in the first place I would. But I can't. All I can do is learn from my mistakes and hope not to make the same ones again.
This is the second time we have moved away from Colorado to be closer to family, and a hope for a better life. I hope now we realize that Colorado is our home and never leave again.
