My stateless state
Yesterday I went to Vienna, to the US Consulate, where I renounced US citizenship - officially, solemnly and irrevocably. Now my US passport, which expired last December, is marked cancelled: "bearer expatriated self". Tomorrow morning I have an appointment to get the document that will declare me an Austrian citizen. Today I am stateless.
After 27 years, it was certainly time to take this step, but in the end it was an odd, slightly sentimental feeling sitting there in the office of the US consulate, where I have been so many times before in so many different situations, knowing that it was for the very last time. Except for the first passport I got in California when I was 18, every passport I have had since then was issued at the US consulate in Vienna. Peter and I went together to get a paper so that I could be married as a US citizen and thus keep my own name; we brought each of our newborn sons there. Sitting downstairs in the Merriot Hotel drinking tea before my appointment, I remembered sitting there with the boys waiting for Francis, having pictures taken at the photo shop downstairs that does instant passport photos for US passports, going to the English bookshop around the corner afterwards, where Patrick, at the age of 5, happily noted, "They speak English in this country, don't they?" - and the same man who took my forms yesterday was the one who gleefully announced last year that Christopher was six feet tall, when he stood against the measuring stick to find out his height for the form for his new passport. I never realized how many memories I associated with the US consulate until the moment that I realized I never need to go there again.
But this is my home, and after tomorrow I will no longer be a "foreigner" here. I have no doubts about my decision at all.
After 27 years, it was certainly time to take this step, but in the end it was an odd, slightly sentimental feeling sitting there in the office of the US consulate, where I have been so many times before in so many different situations, knowing that it was for the very last time. Except for the first passport I got in California when I was 18, every passport I have had since then was issued at the US consulate in Vienna. Peter and I went together to get a paper so that I could be married as a US citizen and thus keep my own name; we brought each of our newborn sons there. Sitting downstairs in the Merriot Hotel drinking tea before my appointment, I remembered sitting there with the boys waiting for Francis, having pictures taken at the photo shop downstairs that does instant passport photos for US passports, going to the English bookshop around the corner afterwards, where Patrick, at the age of 5, happily noted, "They speak English in this country, don't they?" - and the same man who took my forms yesterday was the one who gleefully announced last year that Christopher was six feet tall, when he stood against the measuring stick to find out his height for the form for his new passport. I never realized how many memories I associated with the US consulate until the moment that I realized I never need to go there again.
But this is my home, and after tomorrow I will no longer be a "foreigner" here. I have no doubts about my decision at all.
posted by Aileen at Tuesday, March 14, 2006
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home