I love it here, but....

As it says on the tin, I love it here in England. I absolutely do. I feel as though I've made a pretty good path thus far.

However...

There are times, whilst few and far between times, in fact, where I wonder about what would happen were I to need to return -- immediately. That is, I can recall a time not too long ago, when I was living in Charlotte and received the awful, awful news that my maternal grandmother ('Omi') had passed.

Unlike now, I knew then that I could drive home. I called the airlines and learned that flights were nearly $1k. Yikes. And this was back in 1999? 2000? It was much more than my then $30k salary would allow. I could drive the lil' Honda del Sol home, I figured. Yes, it would make it. It was about six years old, but not many miles. I could be home in 12 hours if I sped...and didn't get caught.

Now it's completely different. I can't drive home, even if I had a car and could actually drive safely in this county with its left-hand side and roundabouts. Yikes. It's a no. I can only fly back.

Then it moves to cost. Sadly, most things in life move to cost. Sigh.

Then I realise that I'm at the mercy of the airlines. Yeesh. After trying to find cheap[ish?] flights for Yanks to take for our upcoming wedding, I recently learned that such high expense costs can hinder travel.

Steve found last minute flights to NYC for under £350. That'd be fab, but one never knows when one might need to go home. I wonder if, like flights to our wedding, we'd not be able to find much below $1200. And (times two) that's more than we have saved in our everyday disposable income with wedding costs. Which leads it to this...

Should one ditch a wedding that's planned in order to cover costs for family stuffs? It seems an obvious argument, methinks. Family always matters more than a party (which can, invariably, be conducted at another time).

Or...does it...just maybe...possibly?...make sense to save, save, save like crazy now, as my father has always taught us, to have not only three months of living expenses in one's pocket ready to go, but also such unexpected costs (e.g., two flights home to NY).

Ahh, how well my parents have always taught me.