Good news - I can!
It has been very many years since I last posted. In the intervening years I have settled into homeownership in Australia, gotten married, and gotten a dog. That's a lot considering the first 30 years of my life consisted only of moving across the country one time.
But perhaps the most exciting part of my last nine (9!!!) years has been learning ever-more about myself and about myself in the context of a solid, foundational relationship and in the context of becoming an ex-pat.
The first 7 years of living abroad, I would say, were un-eventful. To be sure, the first 3 years were hell. I think I cried about missing New York daily. And then weekly. And then monthly. By year 4 of living here I was finally feeling more accepting of my adopted country, but I must admit I was never absolutely in love with the energy of my adopted home city. And I never have stopped missing New York City. I wasn't ready to leave NYC when I did, but I didn't want to give up on the relationship that had only had 1 year to exist when my then-girlfriend insisted that either one of us moved or the relationship was ending, she wasn't going to do long-distance any longer. And so, I moved. For many issues, one of which was worry that if we did not work out and my gf had upended her life to come to New York I had no idea how I would separate myself from her, I moved to Australia. And it was a much, much bigger move and life change than I ever would have envisioned.
I am married now, to the same girl I moved to Australia to continue dating. So that's a good thing, everything worked out. We had some serious ups and downs (full disclosure - I was at massive fault for some very poor choices made while dating) but in the end we chose each other to be our forever-people, with all of the work that entails. I'm in the relationship I always heard about and I couldn't be happier.
Interestingly, I'm less thrilled with my life as an ex-patriot living in Australia. Not in Australia per se, I like the work-life balance (totally foreign compared to how life was in the USA, particularly in NYC), and the general casual energy of the country, but just the life of an ex-patriot. Particularly perhaps in this time of COVID, for the last 2 years, I have found myself exposing very American-colors, that I didn't even really know I had.
I'm not really sure on my feelings about everything, so this post will be just a start s I continue to ruminate, but experiencing COVID in a country that restricted its citizens travel outside of the country's borders was....very....frustrating.
I don't consider myself to be a particularly "patriotic-to-the-point-of-insurrection-and-dying-for-my-country" American. I think that the best citizens of any countries can see the flaws and errors of their country, and I am no exception. I feel that the issues the USA has historically with racism, economic inequality (which, lets face it largely stems from racism), our own history with religious "freedoms", and the damage we have done in terms of establishing capitalism as an economic goal-post amongst a myriad other issues deserve discussion, condemnation, dissemination, and updating.
And yet.
And yet, when I was told by the government of Australia that I was not allowed to travel outside of their country's borders until a time that they deemed suitable I was....very, very irked. Australia has a bit of a reputation amongst its own citizens to be a nanny-government to its own detriment, and this was no exception. But I really, really hated being told that I could not leave Australia's borders.
I mean, I hated it. I found myself being the "ugly American" whose reputation precedes all USA citizens who are lucky enough to travel abroad. I was really miffed at not being trusted to be able to make my own decisions about my health, or being trusted to do the right thing by my fellow citizens upon returning.
I was so miffed, in fact, that my wife and I began the process of applying to get her a green card to live and work in the USA so that eventually she could apply for - and hopefully gain - citizenship to the country. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I wanted to leave this country - of which I am now a citizen - and never return. But I wanted my wife to have the freedom to be able to travel with me to visit the rest of her family regardless of any pandemic-or-otherwise-related travel issues that might crop up in the future.
I just think that both of us having dual citizenship (which luckily we are each allowed to have) would help to make future travelling between our two home countries easier with whatever impacts future pandemics or climate-change-related issues might bring with them.
I think, if COVID has taught us nothing else, it is that nothing is guaranteed, and that putting as many preparations and protections in place as possible before something dire happens is a very, very good idea.
So, 2022, here we go. Year 3 of COVID and the start of the long waiting game of national-moving-related applications. Here's to focusing on remembering to enjoy the present moment between now and whatever the future may hold.
No comments:
Post a Comment