Last Day - Is This How It Feels?

Ok, so today was my last day at work.  I've left jobs before so it was a bit similar but, this time I'm leaving for a whole different reason.

I'm starting a new job on the 17th.  More money so that I can move sooner.  I know I will have to leave that one also (5 months from today I leave for the UK ) But it just felt like I was leaving tomorrow.  It made me a little sad, yeah, but it has to get harder than this, right?  There's no way I'm going to keep calm even up until the day I leave.

So, thats what I'm asking.  How soon before you left did it really hit you?  That you were leaving your family, leaving your friends?  I'm trying to get an idea of when it'll finally hit me cause right now I'm just too wrapped up in getting everything together, Visas, moving companies, etc.

Help me out guys What should I expect, and when should I expect it?

About three weeks after I arrived here, I wondered what on earth I had done. I'd been too busy, like you, to think of anything else but reaching a goal. As soon as I relaxed, and a few realities came to surface, it hit. And I came very close to turning around and going back. Except I was going back to nothing.

I got through that and now feel it's the best thing I've ever done. I love my life now, but it took some _______________ [fill in noun: work, time, energy, compromising, understanding, forgiving, patience...].

I have to agree with Lisa...I was so busy getting ready to move and saying goodbye to everyone...that it seemed like a dream...it was not until I was here for a few weeks and trying to settle that I sat back and cried...what am I doing here, am I crazy for leaving home...  where are all my friends and family... where the heck is my life... do I really wish to be here...and why?

I am getting ready to celebrate 6 months here this month...and although I still get homesick now and then...I know I am where I wish to be...and no thoughts of regret at all anymore.

It hit me when I walked out of the Heathrow arrivals area after getting my initial permission to stay (this was when you could still get a student visa at the airport).

I went through the doors with my things, and even though I had been to the UK several times before, everything looked really weird and I suddenly thought, What have I done?  I've quit my job, sold my car, moved all my money and most of my things, left my home and my family and my friends and I am never going back there to live, and here I am in this strange place.  The thing that hit me hardest was that I'd given up my career in the US and I might never be able to work in my profession again.

I was a state of shock for a couple of months, then I started to get over it.  Oddly, I have never been homesick.

Thanks guys.  I was and am still a little afraid that I'm going to be fine up until the very last day and then lose it.  We aren't getting married immediately after I get there, but I still don't want to make things worse by crying all the time.  We're going to be living with his parents the first year or so, so it won't be like I can go to a different room and hide.  But it will be better than not being with him at all, right?  Thanks again.

Kassie

I feel the same way as LisaE.  It didn't hit me that I was moving until I actually got here.  There was just too much going on before the move (like quitting my job, moving back home, and planning a wedding!) that I didn't really focus on the moving part of the equation.  I still wake up sometimes and am shocked that I'm here!