Coping With Separation.

So how were Claudia and I doing so far? We were both coping very well actually. Once I was working, e-mails flowed back and forth on a regular basis. We had the time differences off pat and as a result I was able to predict Claudia's location and make regular phone calls to her. During 1999 I spent an average of $5 per day calling her. It was lovely, we could chat for five minutes or an hour depending how we both felt. We could cheer each other up, we could surprise each other with the things that we said and we just seemed to grow closer. The calls were part of a regular routine as were the e-mails. We never used on-line chat. I don't know why really, I suppose that we felt that there was more in an e-mail than casual silly chat that can waste half your working day and provide endless distraction. In the end I was very glad too. But more about that later....

My visa had been due to expire in August, but my boss and the company directors were prepared to sponsor me and help me stay in the country on a business visa that would tie me to them for a couple of years. I was happy to give this a try and Claudia was pleased about it too. She loved Australia and was keen to return. Returning to Germany had just meant falling into the same old rut and she was a bit miserable. It was always going to be a long and difficult process for me to get through Australia's notorious immigration minefield. I had no degree, trade or diploma, only heaps of on-the-job-knowledge which is difficult to quantify. I had achieved all the Apple Australia technical certifications, but that was not enough on it's own. The company had been advertising in the national and local press and on-line for some-one like me and only been inundated by MCSEs, no-one who knew Macs. But being too highly specialised for a red-tape behemoth in the form of a government department, it was never going to be easy to convince them that a Mac specialist had skills that no number of home-grown MCSEs could ever deliver without years of experience. The following two years were an endless round of applications, rejections, appeals while immigration lawyers grew rich. I could fill a blog with this saga very easily.

Our relationship held steady during that year and Claudia was happy to come out at the end of the year when it seemed that I would be able to stay on. Recent events, of course, have me wondering just what she got up to in that year, but I never felt in the least bit concerned at the time and she certainly never mentioned if anything bothered her about what I might be up to. It is really sad that I now look back on this period and try to remember if there were any warning signs. It seemed so marvellous to me and others who knew about us that we could both be so sweet and dedicated to one another while so far apart for so long.