Things started moving fast. It was almost too fast. Before we knew it, it was being thrown around at an Executive's Brunch for Trav's colleagues that Travis was jetting off to the Bahamas. It was crazy and a bit scary. We certainly didn't want to be locked into something just for exploring its possibilities. Further complicating matters, since Travis's work viewed this as a transfer, discussions that addressed anything monetary-related were kept on the back-burner. We kept proceeding through each step of the process thinking there would be something tangible to run with and we were not on the receiving end of valuable information.
Travis spoke to the GM of the new hotel and learned the background of the project and the time-frame. We learned that this position needed to relocate by May. We knew we would need to break our lease and would have limited time to tie up loose ends. Travis asked about housing and was advised that she lived in a great community with a lot of expatriate families and that there were a few housing developments to choose from that were all close to work. Their informative conversation was followed quickly with follow up conversations with others from the new Bahamas hotel. Each shared a piece of their experience relocating to the Bahamas and wanted to hear all about Trav. As the potential slowly materialized, we started to see this as a viable opportunity and we started to get excited. We started to tell our friends and family the crazy opportunity we were considering. We vowed to keep a level head throughout the process and make a decision that made the most sense. After sharing our experience, we heard of others that had taken on the same adventure and highly recommended it. It was proposed that the Bahamas, being tax-free, would be the perfect start we needed to save money to start our lives and family. The housing allowance would allow us to save a lot of money. Let's be honest, there's not many places that are more expensive then New York so all the talk of higher costs for gas, groceries, and duty tax mean little to us.
The phone conversations progressed to face-to-face conversations, when Trav met with a Bahamas HR team member in New York. It was explained that things would stall through the Holidays, so not to worry if the process didn't take up steam again until January (It was November). We felt like we were chasing our tails a bit but the Holidays seemed to be the right thing to take our mind off of everything for awhile.
We wanted to start planning just in case this came to fruition but with no talk of relocation finances that was impossible. We were just waiting. And then the cold set in.
Of course this is the year that we are suffering from record cold temperatures and snow levels. It has been unbearable. I have learned things this winter that no Cali girl should ever have to know. Our pipes have frozen and busted, I've shoveled more snow then an Eskimo, and I've set off a fire alarm with steam from the shower, just trying to defrost. Get me the fuck out of here (sorry, I'm having flash backs). We've lived through the Blizzard of 2010 and now this! I am officially done. Just like the cold finding its way into my bones, the panic started to seep into my subconscious. Prior to the Bahamas, Trav and I were having healthy discussions about leaving New York and were open to exploring new options. Then, the Bahamas trounced through in her bikini, stole all of our attention, and we had not come up with a Plan B. We had promised our loved ones we were going to be smart about this, and we were not being smart.
The Holidays came and went, and in mid January a new player had entered the playing field. We won't confuse things with titles and explanations but we'll call her Shellie and she's high up on the food chain in the Food & Beverage sector of Trav's hotel group. She asked Trav for a meeting because she had an exciting update. "Exciting" is always good. We were hopeful this would be the conversation that would start everything in motion again and rescue us from this awful purgatory. Shellie told Travis that the reason his progression had previously been held up these past few months, was because of a formality in the contract between Trav's hotel group in the Bahamas and the complex developer, which we'll call BHD (Bahamas Hotel Developer, creative, I know). Basically, the governing property, BHD has a commitment to the Bahamian Government to provide a certain number of local jobs. With that said, they naturally need to limit the number of jobs that are given to expatriates throughout all of the hotels on property. And to add a political spin, the less expats the other hotels hire, the more ex-pats the BHD team is allowed to hire for their own hotel property that is also located on the complex grounds. Do you smell the contradiction I'm cooking? Good.
The formality that Shellie was referencing was the requirement of potential expatriate candidates of all hotels on property to meet the BHD team for approval, prior to being hired. If you see this as a bit counter-productive to meet with a team that has a vested interest in you NOT getting the job, you catch on fast. Hence the "hold up" as Trav's hotel searched another route. But Shellie was there to save the day because they found a loop hole in the contract that would negate this requirement, therefore, we were good to go with the next step. Travis left the meeting looking forward to hearing from her within the week to schedule the much needed trip to the Bahamas to finally get the answers we've been waiting for!
And then one of life's sharp turns. Shellie advised a couple of weeks later that they had the contract reviewed by another source and they were, in fact, mistaken. They were not able to get around meeting with the BHD team and this would further delay the process as BHD had little incentive to speed this along. This door was closing. I was bummed and confused. The longer this process took, the less time Trav and I would have to put an entire move together and that made the opportunity increasingly stressful and therefore, unappealing. I could not wrap my head around the reasoning behind all of this in the first place. Why had this opportunity been dropped on our door step just to lead us down a rabbit hole for several months? It didn't make sense.
I was done. I was tired, and cold, and I needed to get out of New York. I started to feel trapped, I started to feel helpless. Weeks went by and soon it had been another month without hearing anything. I was doing my best to keep everything in stride but driving in the snow, and shoveling the snow, day-after-day with no end in sight was starting to eat at my sanity. I didn't realize it at the time but as my disdain for the city and winter grew, my dependance on a scape goat grew even more. And when an innocent night at Taco Tuesday ended with me crying in my closet (a major downgrade from crying in the shower), I knew I had officially hit rock bottom.
I called my best friend the next morning for advice. I had gotten so turned around in my head, I didn't know what I wanted any more. She helped me realize that Trav and I needed a new plan. We didn't have a Plan B. It was time to focus on Plan B
Read Next: #4- The Dark Ages, Mar 03
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