Grief
I feel straight-up guilty about how sad I feel. It's very sad. I feel sad like one of the women in mythology, who cry and cry and cry and cause waterfalls or lakes or oceans.
And no one has died. This part is really important so I'm going to type it again, no one has died; my boys are fine and my husband is fine and no one is dead or sick. In fact, I type this on a couch in a suburban, toy-filled living room, while my boys watch Alvin and the Chipmunks for the second time and play and climb on me, in robust health.
I want to cry all the time (and I do cry, at the drop of a hat, at a sentimental children's book; at random objects in my house) because after 12 years of building a life in the USA, my green card application has been denied and there's not enough time on my husband's work visa for us to get far enough through the application process before he has to leave. Before we have to leave.
I've lived here since 2005 but, as of July 2018, I can't live here any more.
And, the child's cry wells up in my head, in my heart, and spills out in the night when he and I talk about it, or when I talk to my therapist. "It's not fair!" I love my life here. I love my friends, job, my house, my neighbours, hah, even my stupid boring car is the exact kind of stupid boring car that I like.
I'm going to have to start again somewhere, and I'm going to have to take my two American children out of the only home they've ever known and make them feel like, hey, they're British too. My darling boys. They're very loud, and very lovely. They're 6 and 4, and they don't know yet.
And no one has died. This part is really important so I'm going to type it again, no one has died; my boys are fine and my husband is fine and no one is dead or sick. In fact, I type this on a couch in a suburban, toy-filled living room, while my boys watch Alvin and the Chipmunks for the second time and play and climb on me, in robust health.
I want to cry all the time (and I do cry, at the drop of a hat, at a sentimental children's book; at random objects in my house) because after 12 years of building a life in the USA, my green card application has been denied and there's not enough time on my husband's work visa for us to get far enough through the application process before he has to leave. Before we have to leave.
I've lived here since 2005 but, as of July 2018, I can't live here any more.
And, the child's cry wells up in my head, in my heart, and spills out in the night when he and I talk about it, or when I talk to my therapist. "It's not fair!" I love my life here. I love my friends, job, my house, my neighbours, hah, even my stupid boring car is the exact kind of stupid boring car that I like.
I'm going to have to start again somewhere, and I'm going to have to take my two American children out of the only home they've ever known and make them feel like, hey, they're British too. My darling boys. They're very loud, and very lovely. They're 6 and 4, and they don't know yet.
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