PERSPECTIVE

I knew today will be the day for a positive post. I knew I would see the blessings around me and realize that yes! there are things in my life that I am not happy with (e.g. my work, the state I live in, the length of my legs and the fact that no matter how much I try my immigration process is not moving smoothly at all).

I just didn’t know it would take seeing a building being torn from its foundation by raging water to realize my complains, my grievances, my silly problems are nothing, absolutely nothing compared to what’s going on in Japan, or Libya.

I have been a little selfish, I must confess. But in my defense if you were me, with a decade of trying and not succeeding you would be feeling a little miffed yourself. Isn’t that the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results?

Perspective is a funny thing, it can bitch slap you in the face with a “get over yourself” or it can come subtly and sweetly like a pat in the head from another source. The video of Japan was the bitch slap. The pat came in the form of my smart and beautiful cousin, who like me had to struggle to get her paperwork done. It took her sweat, tears and heartache but she had it done. She is now a doctor at John Hopkins Hospital after having to start her medical degree from scratch.

What do I have to complain when an entire country is going through the threat of nuclear radiation exposure? Stupid me.

It’s very humbling when something like this happens and one is faced with just how inconsequential we are, how small our problems are. In the great scheme things is humbling to recognize our own insignificance.

I was glad to see that for the first time the yahoo.com thread wasn’t full of vile or spewing with hatred. All the people commenting were full of hope and good thoughts, prayers and words of encouragement:

“…Its times like this we should all realize were humans, and act like it. Not making racist comments to any race/religion. But to wish this group of people well, health, and a bright future. It doesn't matter whether you are Japanese, Jewish, Persian, African, or European. In times like this everyone needs to help each other out”

“…How pitifully small we are compared to nature. How ridiculous our puny and futile feuds when compared with forces like this”

“…After 9/11, the French president declared, 'today we are all American.' Today, we are all Japanese”

“…be well people of Japan”

“…God help those people who are suffering from this disaster, shelter them, feed them, and guide them and look after them they are your children. Also those who you have taken away from this world may their soul rest in peace and open the door of heaven to them. God bless all those who are living in Japan. Our prayer is always with them”

Someone named Kooties also posted this:

“…I feel so ashamed for complaining about the minuscule hardships in my life; God please help the people of Japan! I thank you for my life and everything that you've allowed me to have while I'm on This earth”

There is hope for humanity after all.

So, let’s pray to each of our Gods, whatever they may be, in thanks for simply being alive and in behalf of our brothers and sisters in Japan who so need us.

ARRRGH!!!

Oh where to begin. Let me update ya’ll on my current situation. My lawyer informed me that my husband’s application to change my status has been seating at my local immigration office since August 2009, Yeah, that long! That’s right, my future, in the hands of clerks at an office that sits only five miles away from me.

This Sunday I will be celebrating my two years anniversary. DH and I had plans of going out of town like we did last year to celebrate our first, but we are trying to save money and pay debts and all those pesky things that get in the way of being romantic. They don’t tell you those things when you read romance novels. They don’t tell you about the annoying traits that will make you want to kill your DH, or the disgusting things one has to witness when sharing a bathroom, or how the day to day life gets in the way of simply wanting to enjoy one’s marriage. They don’t tell you that the processes you have seen take only six months in your case will last 2 years with no solution looming in the future and putting a stall on your plans for life. Going to school, getting a job I enjoy, traveling, getting a license, getting a car, buying a house.

The INS is holding my future hostage, my plans, my dreams for tomorrow, the things I want to do, the things I want to become, they are all being held in the inexorable grasp of a governmental agency that apparently does not know what to do with me and has no rush in finding out. I am being held hostage and it seems to be just for their amusement. If they asked for some sort of ransom I am sure DH and I could come up with something, but I think they perversely enjoy making me wait, wait and wait.

I have no criminal records, speak perfect English, have not once received help from the government, I am young, healthy and able to work, willing to go to school, smart. Why exactly is the INS so against me? I sound wonderful on paper, hell if I were my own country I would want all my residents to be like me (modesty’s obviously not my forte).

Even though I talk about Canada and Europe every time I feel frustrated with my situation the truth is I don’t want to move. I want to stay in the U.S. I don’t want to uproot myself once more and go through all this process again. I also want to tear my hair out, gnaw my arm off and just give up.

I hear people telling me oh you are so strong, so determined. I am neither. It’s sheer and simple stubbornness. Well, it’s 50% stubbornness and 50% laziness. I am so tired I cannot imagine myself picking up and leaving after I have been here for nine years, almost a decade of my life as an unwanted guest. That’s enough to damage anyone’s self steam. When does it stop? When do they decide I am worth noticing? Do they care that my life has been in limbo for the past two years? The answers are, probably never, never and no.

It won’t stop, they are never going to think any immigrant is worth noticing and no, they don’t care about the past two years of my life or what is doing to my marriage and my psyche.

So when does one truly give up? I have dreams of saying Fuck Off! Flip them off and walk away to Europe where I become a blogging sensation, then an acclaimed writer and then Oprah would want to interview me and I would be like, sorry your country didn’t want me, now I don’t want it!

Sigh. Such petty dreams.

That’s the thing, like a fool who goes to her friends to complain about her boyfriend who cheats and then goes back to him; I will probably remain here until I am old and wrinkled. I will be waiting for them, counting my days, my weeks, my months and years for a reply. Waiting for that stupid official looking letter where they say “you will be interviewed on such and such date”.

Not only do I have to go through the humiliating process of explaining that yes, this is really my husband, yes we are really fucking, yes, he is the man I chose. No, not because of papers, no, I sleep on the left side of the bed; I don’t know his favorite color. Maybe ten years from now when I am comfortable in my lack of status they will say, sorry after ten years reviewing your case we have decided your request has been denied, you have 90 days to put your affairs in order and leave the country (which has happened to people here, I’m not making that shit up).

Argh!

Hopefully I will have a nicer post for tomorrow.

Happy New Year 2011

Another year is almost over, another year in this country, struggling to belong, struggling to get my affairs in order, struggling to organize my life, to start the life I want, struggling to find enough money to pay for some things, struggling to find a way to go to school (etc)

And in the middle of all that I am so happy. I am happy because I am healthy and in love, surrounded by family and full of friends. I am thin (yay diet), I am happy with myself, happy with my family, happy with the visitors I got from Colombia, my aunt and cousin whom I hadn’t seen in a decade.

I never thought eight years ago that there would come a time when Christmas wouldn’t depress me, when New Year’s Eve wouldn’t be a time to cry. Yet here I am, looking forward to tomorrow (and the insane skinny white dress I am wearing) but also looking forward to the bittersweet feeling when is midnight and I find myself still here for one more year.

While it sounds scary, the truth is that way of thinking has made me enjoy life and what it brings in a way that only uncertainty can. I feel so blessed (ugh for the nonbeliever in me) and so lucky I feel like I am bragging.

I will get teary eyed tomorrow. Teary eyed for that land that I truly belong to and I haven’t stepped on in a decade, I would get sad because its music stir my souls and makes my heart ache, I will be sad because I will remember all those other years when I was younger and sharing with other people I haven’t seen in so long and probably will never see again. I will cry for those moments lost, for those moments I didn’t appreciate because I didn’t know where never coming back. And still I will smile, smile for the plentiful in front of me, for the beautiful luck I have, for the overwhelming abundance of beautifulness that is my life.

This time, I celebrate New Year’s not only with my sister and brother, mother and husband, sister and brother in laws but also with my aunt and my cousin. I wonder if anyone but someone who has been separated from family can understand how monumental this moment is, how special it was seeing each other after so long, how touching it was that time and distance never made us strangers.

So, happy New Year readers, whoever you are. Enjoy your day, near you family, wife, husband, partner, friend, cat, dog, and TV set, whoever and whatever you have in your life that makes you happy. Think of the year ahead and expect the best.

Smile, laugh, love, live.