To move or not to move? That’s just one of many questions. There are others, practical and personal. Where to move? For how long? What are the motivations for moving? Does the good outweigh the bad? Why? Am I being honest with myself? What’s important in life? Am I doing the right thing? What does it mean to live without regrets?
You’ll keep asking some of them over and over again. That’s a good thing, especially for the more personal ones. Things change, you change and other people like friends and family change too (which indirectly influences you). You’ve always got to ask yourself the questions as they come up. And then try to answer them, otherwise they’ll just keep coming. It’s tiresome but rewarding. The thing is just that sometimes you don’t have all the answers, and you won’t get them either. Sometimes you just have to move forward in the way you’re lead and feel your way around. I think it’s then that you’ll instinctively know which way to go.
Once we’d made up our mind to move to Ireland from Cape Town, we started packing. Within 3 months my husband found a job in Ireland and I packed up the house. We took a look at our three years of savings in Rands (€1 = R16) and said “Nah, we’ll be fine!” and used the first of it to buy plane tickets to Amsterdam and then on wards to Cork, Ireland. We landed here in the middle of storm Blarney, got our required stamps (permission to remain in the country for a certain time). Then we had a nice bit of a holiday and explored the city. We found accommodation out in Waterfall and bought a car. The cats were flown over into Ireland. My husband started his new job soon afterwards and I started my job search.
It can be quite difficult to find information on what to do if you hold a non-EEA passport. I’m going to be doing a few blog posts sharing my research about what’s involved in moving to Ireland in the hope that it will be helpful to someone else.