Back to the Land Down Unda???

Within the last week I've changed my mind a million times. I've rethought my future career goals, my current friendships, and my dreams of a California wedding along with many other things and I've made a few decisions... I think.

I might go back to Australia. This distance is killing me! The fiancé and I are still going strong and are very much in love, nothing's changed there, if anything, our feelings for each other have grown stronger. I just miss him so much, I can't describe the empty loneliness I feel. It's like after a million bad dates, failed relationships, and poor choices, finally finding that one person who is absolutely right for you and then being taken away from them. Well it's not like that. It is that. So we made plans for him to come here and it's taking forever for immigration to pass the initial petition so he can apply for his fiancé visa so we can be together. The whole process for him to come here should take between four and six months which is a long time to be away from someone you love. But then something came up and The Fiancé has been offered an excellent employment opportunity that he would kinda be foolish to pass up. But I can't go back to Australia for another three years! (I'm restricted because I was unlawful with my student visa and waited too long to renew it and all that.)

Well, at least I thought I couldn't go back to Australia for three years. It turns out that I can appeal the three-year non-re-entry restriction if I have compelling and compassionate reasoning for my unlawfulness. Well, alright then. After I was assaulted last September, I wanted to go home. I failed all of my classes that semester and found it difficult to focus on my studies. I didn't have any intentions of staying in Australia for as long as I did, I knew my visa would expire in March '08 and I thought I'd be leaving at that time. But the supportive people I'd met there encouraged me to retake the semester's classes and finish my degree. So I did, and I was a semester behind my graduating class which put me a semester behind my visa expire date. It took a while for me to come up with the extra money to reapply for the visa and when I did have the funds, I found out I'd waited too long to reapply and was forced to leave the country. I guess that's it. Is that compassionate and compelling?

I can appeal the exclusion period and apply for a permanent "Prospect of Marriage" visa which means I would have to get married within nine months of landing in Australia and guess how long it takes the Australian embassy to process this visa before it's even approved? Between four and six months. So either way it seems we'll have to wait nearly half a year to be together. Now what? Perhaps we should wait out the U.S. petition for his visa to come here so we can get married? I mean, I've already paid the $455 processing fee. But what about his job opportunity? Should I pay the $1,425 for the permanent visa in Australia and get married there? But what about my family and friends? Why can't there be a happy medium or something? Why must one of us sacrifice everything for the other to be happy? We're both willing to give everything up to be together but why must it always come to that?