ONCE MORE OUT OF MY HANDS

So yesterday we woke up at five am to be able to be in Miami at 9. I don’t live four hours away from Miami but the traffic as soon as you hit the city is so damn slow that last time we went we sat in the highway for an hour and got to my lawyer’s office so late we had to wait until he had another opening and I almost peed my pants in the car stuck in traffic.

We showed up to my lawyer’s office and sat down with the paralegal to review all the paperwork we had to give them to prove to them our marriage is not a sham. So we went through, marriage certificates, emails, phone records, deeds, life insurance, health insurance, affidavits from friends and family stating they believe our wedding to be a real one and have now to pay another $1,010 to pay for my residency application which could be denied of course but that needs to be sent nonetheless.

As I sat there, trying to remember how many bloody times I have been in that office for the past eight years, my lawyer made a quick appearance and told the paralegal to submit everything at the same time and not give the immigrations agent a chance to hold onto anything to get me out of the country.

Apparently one my lawyer’s clients showed up to his interview thinking he was going to be questioned about his marriage and instead was put into detention and deported out of the country.

Poor Dear Husband, who no matter how often I tell him that is a possibility seems to be in denial of what could happen to me, had a horrified look on his face.

I don’t live in constant fear of being deported. I think there are worse things that could happen as long as everyone I love is healthy and alive anything else to me is small potatoes. But the idea of being detained for months until they can fill an airplane and send me to Colombia fills me with anger. Anger that they would dare to hold me like a criminal, anger that I would have to sit on a cell with a bunch of strangers while we await someone else to decide on our future. I never came to this country illegally so the fact that they would treat me like I broke the law when I haven’t even jaywalked in my life pisses me off.

The process is underway and once more things are out of my hands. For someone who likes to be in control, knowing that my future doesn’t depend on me makes me antsy.

Sometimes I want to fight and claw my way in here and others I realized I’ve been here for so long trying to do things right and still it doesn’t go my way. I sometimes feel like quitting and moving away and that’s it. I have been holding on for so long to the dream of staying here that my fingers hurt and I am close to not giving a damn anymore.

Australia is starting to sound awesome, Canada, who doesn’t like Canadians? I think I could pick up again and start all over but it all seems so unfair to poor Dear Husband who never asked for any of this.

He seems to like the idea of moving away when all I want it’s a little stability, a semblance of normalcy in this crazy life of mine.

We’ll see.

THE INEXORABLE PULL OF RESPONSIBILITY

I wish I had coined the phrase since it seems to describe my very existence. I am, it seems, trapped by a sucking, drowning, black-hole of responsibility. There are, I know, people who seem free of such a crippling emotion, because that is what responsibility is, an emotion. A feeling in the pit of your stomach, in the center of your heart that makes one do things we don’t want to do, but we do nonetheless because it is expected, because one has to.

Girls always dream of being Lizzie and holding out for love, for passion, for someone who is going to understand one’s quirks in personality. Girls dream of being Lizzie and being brave and holding out for Mr. Darcy, but I am afraid I would have never been a Lizzie Bennett and that I am destined to be a Fanny Price, my most hated of Austen’s heroines.

I am afraid that my sense of responsibility keeps me from doing what I dream of doing and sending everyone to hell and being utterly selfish and caring only about what I want and what I need and what I expect of life. But I am, no matter how hard I try, going ‘round and ‘round doing what I have to do.

I would’ve married Mr. Collins. I would’ve married a totally unsuitable person to save my family from destitution. I would have had sex and bore him children and endured the attentions of Lady Catherine de Burgh simply because it was expected of me.

There is no rebellion in me, no overwhelming passion, because responsibility shadows, swallows, overwhelms everything else. I am doomed to be responsible. I am doomed to swallow my wants and do what needs to be done. Why do I have to? Why can’t I just ignore everything that needs to be done and simply be? Is it my lot in life to take care of what needs to be taken care of disregarding completely the hungers in my soul that need to be fed?

I wish I was more ambitious. Ambitious enough that only my interest seemed to matter, but my ambitions are simple: Health for those I love, to be loved, a house of my own, a job that I like and occasional travels that show me the world out there. I don’t wish for riches and grandeur, I don’t crave fame and fortune. I work for a multibillionaire and I know that money does not necessarily mean happiness. I can’t help but think that if I wanted it more, wished for it more, ignored others more I could have everything I wanted.

Sometimes I want to run away from everything, expectations, family, friends… and myself. Let’s combine those two and really put together what I want to run away from: Family expectations.

Sometimes I wish I was more like my brother, who has no regard for anyone but himself. No regard but what he wants. Sometimes I wish I could grab my credit card and disappear into oblivion in a small town in the middle of nowhere U.S. and work at some dinner where my name is not my name and I can spend my days doing something little and meaningful and write and get up knowing that I will write some more and do something with my days that does not include disappearing in anonymity in an office, doing nothing worth wile and being invisible.

I know the feeling will disappear and tomorrow I will get up and do what is expected. Dry, cold, reliable, and responsible Melissa, doing what needs to be done, no matter what. But right now I want to be more, do more.

I know it’s silly. I get to the end of this post and I realize how many times I have said in the past, “With privilege comes responsibility” and I am oh so privileged with a big family. I just wish there was someone to share those big responsibility’s with.

They feel so heavy sometimes.