My Canadian Sweetheart

First of all, I want to say Congratulations! to my friend James on his recent engagement!!

Gates and I got engaged on October 19, 2009.

He picked me up from the airport that evening and we went back to his apartment. When I walked into his room, I noticed what looked like a childrens book next to the bed. The cover was a split screen. On the left was a Penguin wearing a USA scarf and standing in front of a city skyline. On the right was a Turtle wearing a baseball cap with a red maple leaf on it, standing in front of some mountains.

I sat on the bed and read the story of Erin the American Penguin and Gates the Canadian Turtle.

Each page was beautifully illustrated and showed scenes from different stages in our relationship. As I got toward the end of the book, Gates the Turtle gave Erin the Penguin some roses, each colored rose representing something different. On the second to last page, Gates the Turtle handed Erin the Penguin a huge heart and asked, “Will you marry me?”

Of course, by now I was nearly blinded with tears and my Gates was down on his knees beside me, asking me to be his wife.

He wrote me a book! He even had our friend Ahms (our Ancient Sun guild master and an art student out in California) illustrate it for him.

It was the sweetest, cutest, bestest (yes, bestest) proposal in the entire world.

And, yes, Gates is the sweetest, cutest, bestest man I've ever met!

(Cover of our Engagement Book with my engagement ring sitting on it.)

(My roses and the book open to the page with the roses.)

Choosing a Visa

At first, we weren't sure which one of us would apply for immigration.

I was unemployed (oh, the joys of job searching during the Recession, especially in a small town). And Gates had a job that he didn't like. So, we made a deal that whoever found the best job, the other would try to move to them.

I applied to every local opening I could find (there weren't many) and searched all over the United States and Canada for any job that involved editing, copyediting, or proofreading. (I have a Master's degree in Publishing and worked as a Fiction Copy Editor at Tyndale House Publishers in Chicago for a couple years before I moved to West Virginia in 2006.) Every day, for months on end, I sent out numerous resumes and filled out application after application.

I was given only three interviews: one for an editing job at Research In Motion in Canada (the guys that make BlackBerry), one for a graphic designer job at a small publishing house in Ohio, and one for the remodeling crew at the Wal-Mart in New Philadelphia.

So I ended up working the only job I was offered, as part of the temporary staff at Wal-Mart during the summer of 2009.

Luckily, Gates' old high school friend, Chris, recommended him for a IT Services job with the Canadian government. Gates was hired, receiving not only a substantial raise from his last job, but also receiving an amazing benefits package and pension plan.

In Gates' opinion, he'd found the job he wants to keep until he retires.

That's when I started looking into Canadian Immigration policies in earnest.

It boiled down to three options for me: Employment Visa, Full-Time Student Visa, or Family Class Visa

I was still searching, but the prospect of finding an employer who would sponsor me to move to Canada to work for them wasn't looking too great. I had no money (or desire) to go back to college full-time. Which left us with the Family Class option.

There were three ways for Gates to sponsor me using the Family Class option.

The first was sponsoring me as a Common-Law Partner (meaning we would have to live together for one year before he could sponsor me, which wasn't a possibility).

The second was sponsoring me as his Conjugal Partner-- yes, that sounds funny, but what it means is that we would have to date each other exclusively for at least twelve months, but “forces beyond our control” would keep us from living together (ie, an international border, etc.). The problem with this option was that, even though I'd filed for divorce in April, I still didn't have a court date as of the end of August. We wouldn't be able to claim an exclusive relationship until I was legally single.

The third option was to sponsor me as a Spouse. We knew from the day we started dating that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together, so this option made the most sense. But, again, we weren't able to start any paperwork until after my divorce was finalized.

Which it was, on October 6, 2009.

I didn't realize the dates were so close until just now: I'm landing as an immigrant on October 5, 2010, almost exactly one year after my divorce hearing.

In a lot of ways, the whole immigration process seems to have taken forever and ever. But, really, it could have taken much, much longer. There were a few difficult times, of course, but overall these past twelve months have been some of the happiest of my entire life.

And I have no doubt that the next twelve months will be even better!

A Little More Complicated Than Love At First Sight

When I came home from my trip to Canada, I went with Chrissy to Bob Evan's so I could tell her all about the guildmates I had met. I described them the best I could: this one was such a sweetheart, that one was extraordinarily easy to talk to, the other was kinda cute. I even felt as if one of them was like the older brother I'd never had but always wanted. I qualified Gates as a “really great guy” but that was all.

I wish I could say that it was love at first sight, and Gates and I fell in love at his party in August 2008. But that wasn't how it happened.

From the end of August to the end of November of that year, Gates and I only exchanged a couple “Hey, how are you today?” greetings via text message or in-game guild chat while playing WOW.

See, when I went on vacation to Canada, I was married.

I could write for days and days about this topic, but I'll keep it very brief. I was in an abusive marriage. After one exceptionally terrible night, I realized that if I didn't leave him, I was going to end up dead.

With the help of my family, I essentially ran away from home on September 24, 2008, and moved in with my parents in Ohio.

That was the blackest period of my entire life. That first month, the fear and paranoia were crippling to the point where I couldn't leave the house by myself, and I freaked out every time a door slammed or a car drove down our street. I started receiving one-on-one counseling and also attended group therapy at the domestic violence shelter once a week. I was put on both anti-depressants and anxiety medicine.

By the end of October 2008, I wanted to file for divorce, but because I had moved, I had to establish six months of residency in the my parents' county before I could file.  Returning to the courthouse in Kanawha County back in West Virginia wasn't an option for me.  Which meant I was going to have to wait until March 24 before even starting the paperwork.

I played WOW constantly. I understand now that it was a form of escapism, that if I was concentrating on fighting in battlegrounds or attending raids that I wouldn't have to contemplate what was happening in my personal life. It was how I coped.  I also realize that it was my guild that helped me maintain my sanity during those dark days. Those good friends I had made in game became some of my greatest supports and were there for me, unconditionally, when I needed them the most.

After WOW's Wrath of the Lich King expansion was released, I started playing a lot more with Justin. He would play his new Death Knight character and I would play my Mage, but we often needed a healer. So, Justin would convince Gates, his roommate, to bring his Paladin to play with us. Gates' main character was a Mage, so he was pretty rusty at healing and our characters ended up dying quite a lot.

Gates felt really bad one day after one of his fail healing attempts, and, using the in-game mailing system, he sent me an apology note and a bouquet of wild flowers for my character.

That's when I started to notice that Gates wasn't just a good guy, he was also kinda sweet.

One night near the end of November, we stayed up until 1am, talking to each other via in-game private messages for over two hours. We talked a lot, a whole lot, during the next couple weeks. He even ended up inviting me to come spend New Year's in Ottawa and bought me a plane ticket.

I arrived on December 30, and on January 3, 2009, we started going out.

Or, as much as any couple who lives 588 miles and an international border apart can go out.

After I left to go back to the States, Justin asked Gates how the visit had been. Gates said it had been good. Justin asked, “Good as in it was fun to hang out, or good as in you're going to see her again?” Gates said, “Good, as in she's my girlfriend now.”

Justin replied with, “So which one of you is getting a Green Card?”

It's been nearly twenty-one months now, and that Green Card is almost mine.

It's All Lani's Fault

My name is Erin. I am a United States citizen who will be landing as a legal immigrant to Canada in nine days.

Why am I emigrating to Canada, you might ask?

Well, if you really want to break it down, it's entirely Lani's fault.

My best friend, Chrissy, got married in December of 2005. Her husband (Lani) convinced her to start playing an on-line massive multi-player video game called World of Warcraft. In the summer of 2007, while we were eating dinner at Max's and Erma's before going to see “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”, Chrissy told me I should start playing WOW and join her guild, The Ancient Sun.

I have never been any good at video games. I was okay at games like Dr. Mario or MarioKart, but any other games... I had played WOW before and got bored of it, but I decided to try out Chrissy's server and guild since it would give us more opportunities to interact, since we only saw each other about once a month.

On August 8, 2007, my character joined Chrissy's guild.

I met some truly amazing people while playing with the Ancient Sun. I soon became close to several of the guys and girls in the game and we quickly became friends on Myspace and Facebook. One weekend in July 2008, while I was on my way from West Virginia to Chicago for a wedding, I stopped and had lunch with two boys in Indiana (Jeremy and Rammy) and on the way home I stopped and had dinner with Jeremy's older brother, Bobby, who was our guild master at that time.

I had so much fun meeting these on-line friends in real life that when the opportunity arose for me to travel to Vancouver and Ottawa to meet more than a dozen of them, I went.

In Vancouver, I met Clayton, James and Colin, Yves and his wife, and Anat and her son. In Ottawa, I met Rob and Mark and Coop, Roxie and Donny and Wade, and on August 24, 2008, Gates and Justin threw a party for us at their apartment.

I've come to realize that going to that party was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Because that's where I met Gates in real life for the first time.

I'm moving to Canada because I was able to obtain a Family Class Permanent Residency Visa.

Gates, my husband, is my sponsor.

I would have never met him if I hadn't gone to Canada to visit my Ancient Sun guildmates, I would have never become a part of that guild if Chrissy hadn't asked me to join, and Chrissy would have never played WOW if her husband, Lani, hadn't convinced her.

So, in short, it really is Lani's fault that I'm about to become an American Emigrant living in Canada.

And I really can't thank him enough.