My husband and I met on the island so we were much more equipped mentally for this move then if it were all brand new. But time has a way of changing reality into nostalgic memories. While the concept of island-time never left my recollection, time certainly had polished it up and brightened the picture. Things in the islands have a funny way of moving surprisingly fast and amazingly slow at the same time. If you don’t watch out, an idea might suddenly turn into reality before you ever realize you agreed to it changing form. Then, the quiet falls, the clock softly ticks, days drift by, and you wait. And wait. Now, if I had not had a previous understanding of this and good friends to remind me that this is the natural course here, I would have been very alarmed and possibly canceled the whole plan for one more comfortably paced, if less exotic one. So, instead of being very alarmed, I was only moderately concerned by the fact that we were giving work our leave notices, selling most of our possessions, and moving out of our house with only a good hunch that we did in fact have our old jobs back, but still waiting on official contracts that were sitting on far-off desks. Weeks passed. Out of our view, those contracts got slowly shuffled around, corrected, adjusted, and shuffled further down the line. Meanwhile, we continued on with our routine back in Arizona, watchful of our email for the much awaited certainty that we did, in fact, have jobs. My husband got his confirmation first, along with a start date. So now we had a deadline, or a starting line if you look at it another way. But either way, we had to be on island by the beginning of July. More weeks passed. Family and friends were asking when we were leaving. Answer: We don’t know. Last days of work were getting closer, bank accounts were getting scrutinized. Without question there was a level of concern: what if this job did not come through. Certainly, here on the mainland, if a company wanted to hire you they would not take quite so long to make you an offer. According to mainland rules, things were looking grim. My new, routine-driven, status quo brain was nagging me: How could I be this irresponsible? I have a son now, a family, what if it this job, this move, didn’t work out? What if I had ruined everything I had, even if it was bordering on mediocre? But, then there were the memories of how it all worked on the island. So I stopped, took a breath, and relaxed…I would be on the island soon, where the pace of life is slow and things have an uncanny way of working out if you don’t try to plan too hard.
Playing the Waiting Game
