The Australian Dream Crumbles

Claudia had that job until we swapped our work visas for holiday ones and began to pack up. Yes, we had to leave Australia. Like all decent people, we got fucked over by a system designed to cope with undesireables. And because we were decent people, we were not going to get a hearing, create a fuss or otherwise attract the attention and support of self-righteous do-gooders. I had gone from being on a regular one-year working holiday visa to a business sponsorship visa, the circumstances of the business changed when it became time to renew the visa again, the business would no longer qualify as a sponsor and therefore I would not qualify as a sponsoree. No other businesses were prepared to got through the hoops that my boss had gone and the industry was in a bit of a dip anyway. I could not qualify for a 'Skilled Migration Visa' because my skillset did not include a degree or diploma. Claudia never worked in the field in which she had a degree and therefore she could not qualify. In retrospect, she should have already been studying in which case we would at least have been able to stay albeit with work restrictions. But as mentioned in the previous posts, Claudia could not be talked into that. In fairness, a major concern would have been money. As a foreign student, any course would have been extremely expensive, but we could have borrowed money and managed. There was another way. A way that everyone told us about and we tried to laugh, but it was not funny. The easy way to stay would have been to start a family, leech off the social welfare system and attract the interest of a civil rights lawyer, but like I said, we were decent people and when our time was up, we sold our stuff, packed our bags, shed tears with friends and left. It saddens me immensely to think that realistically, my life, Claudia's life and most certainly OUR life had seen the sun set on the happiest ever times. Nothing will ever recapture the innocence, the excitement, the friendships, the experiences and the love we had. Anything I ever do now will be measured against those times. Anyone I ever love will not hold my heart in it's entirety, because I know how dangerous that is. The friends we had loved US as a couple as much as they did as individuals and meeting anyone again without being together will feel wrong.