renewed visa

Yesterday was a biggish day, the kind that makes me nervous and used to require a tiny dose of xanax to get me through - not this time though. Ex and I had to travel to Johor Baru, sans kids, the capital of our state Johor and two hours drive away, to renew my visa.

I was nervous because there was a chance that things could go wrong, that I'd forget stuff and ex would get angry and stressed. I hate doing that to him. So in light of that, I did everything in my power to make everything go right.

- kids organised to go to mother in laws and get picked up from school by brother in law
- enough money
- documents and paperwork organised
- phonecall to immigration department to check fees, paperwork required and office hours - this required the woman to leave the phone to find out the answers three separate times.
- pen and notebook packed
- phone charged
- kids uniforms ironed and packed to go to mother in laws
- kids homework completed, homework files and school bags packed.
- change of clothes and toiletries packed for after school shower
- breakfast packed to give to mother in law so the kids could eat their regular breakfast. Cereal, milk, bread and peanut butter- she doesn't have any of these things
- water and snack box packed for school.

Ex looked over at the things I'd prepared and said "Gee, you did a great job preparing all that!!"

I had everything done. I got up at 6.30 so we could leave at 7.30. We were ready and we left on time. We were on the road to JB at 7.35. 20 minutes into our journey, I woke from my snooze thinking that I'd just better check my passport, just in case.

And guess what!! ... it wasn't my passport in there, it was my daughters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Arrrgghh


I couldn't believe it. I was so angry with myself. All that preparation and I stuff up the most important thing. TURN BACK, I said and ex did. I expected anger and frustration from him, terse looks and lots of sighing.

I got calmness, words of don't worry, better that you find out now than when we get there and you can't do anything about it. He was calm and reassuring. I was surprised and then my own anger subsided and though still unhappy with myself (the way most people are when they do something so stupid), managed to 'recover' within 5 or so minutes. When I asked him later how it was that he didn't get stressed he said that it was because I'd made such a huge effort to get everything right and that this was only one thing and he's learned that he has to let it go because getting angry never helps. In our previous life, so many things would go wrong, it was all he could do not to get frustrated and angry. So things HAVE changed, me and him both.
(In hindsight, maybe this was 'meant' to happen, so that both of us could see how the other has changed - I certainly saw a difference in his reaction and though it was my mistake, he could see how I'd thoroughly prepared everything else - so Tolle's 'you need to have this experience' really comes to life in this sense)

The trip back home to exchange passports was quick enough and as ex said 'meant to be' as we both needed the toilet, as you do in the morning. Back on the road again, feeling MUCH better, we made our way to the Immigration department and had the visa completed within the hour. Now this has got to be some sort of record for them. Previous attempts to renew my visa have taken at least 6 hours, with most of that just waiting for them to process the paper work. However, this time, things were different. They've smartened up, they've renovated. The forms you need to collect and fill out are now available in the same room, instead of having to go all the way downstairs. The airconditioning was working. There were seats available to sit on and there weren't nearly as many people waiting as there had been previously. So we lodged the forms, waited maybe 20 minutes, paid the fee, waited another 20 minutes and collected my passport, with visa intact, which was surprising because the chickie on the phone told me it would take two weeks to process. That's something that hasn't changed - the people on the phones rarely give out the correct information.

Soooooo, the day turned out well. After that , we went for a bit of shopping and ex introduced me to one of his "JB friends" - those he goes to see when he goes away for the weekend. I hated it when ex introduced me and used the word wife, though there's nothing I can do about that because according to everyone else, that's who I am. So this guy took us for lunch and I pretended to enjoy it. It was bak kuh teh - literally meat bone tea. I don't mind this dish but the meat was tough and it was bloody hot in the restaurant. Give me a nice light pasta any day.

The best part of the day was shopping at Cold Storage afterwards - export grade topside and minced beef, chopped chicken pieces, pork fillet, kalamata olives, fresh chat potatoes, decent sausages for the kids, swiss mushrooms and nice crisp butter lettuce, real tim tams from Australia (there's another type that are manufactured in Indonesia and they're a chocolate wafer biscuit and no where close to the real thing) - and lindt dark chocolate (which, a day later, is almost finished). When I was looking around the supermarket, I could have picked up so much stuff, but I limited myself to a few goodies and the rest is fresh and healthy.

So I'm reasonably happy. The freezer is full and we have a few luxury things to eat. I was positively drooling while I was shopping - god I miss the food back home. When you're in the supermarket next, look at the shelves people - just look at them and appreciate the variety and freshness of the things there. Then go to the butcher's and linger over the clean, red meat and say to yourself, I am lucky to live in Australia, where we have really good produce and high standards of hygiene. And smile, because you are lucky.

Have a nice day.