Naturalisation
This post took a while. This March, I became a German citizen. Since then, my mind has entered an almost paralysing reflexive loop.
Before the official ceremony that my city organises, I felt a nervousness coupled with sadness that probably came from the unknown: how long will it take, why do they take so long to reply, is it really going to happen, or could legislative change break or slow down the process? These are the insecurities one learns to expect on the migratory path to greater safety. The search for security could always unveil more insecurity. So, before the ceremony, I sulked in an unnecessary melancholy. Unrationalised or discerned, this feeling was silent. Mixed with the ending winter, there was no way to know whether the season, normal tiredness, the ceremony, or its meaning was pressing on my humour.
The fact is that the day came. During the ceremony, alone not by choice but because we could not bring anyone, at one moment I got emotional and cried a bit, which was not expected, as the previous sullenness had made for a dull, neutral feeling announcing indifference. The ceremony, with the speech from the mayor, full of boring commonplaces, was still touching. Touching because commonplaces can be universal because they are so common. So these structures happen in one way or another in the lives of all of those in this beautiful room. After getting emotional against my expectations, I got out, met friends, and went for sparkling wine and beer later on. At this point, I finally felt exhilarated. I was happy. I was happy that the whole long bureaucratic process was over; that I would never have to go back to those rooms or the Foreigners’ Office and never need to see the public servants at the Ausländerbehörde again. The feeling of freedom was there. In a way, I felt, for the first time, proud of being German - …also.
Hence, in this context, where a weird melancholy and emotional distance turned into touching emotions, to later transform into ecstasy, it caught me by surprise that, a couple of weeks later, I felt empty and reflective. But why should I fell anything other than happy, alleviated, looser?
Before this essay turns into self-pity, I would like to show the reader what I mean. Some readers could interpret the last lines as a matter of regret, but that is not what I mean. The question of retrospective regret assumes a level of freedom, control and access to alternatives completely that are often inadequate in analyzing lifestyle complicated by migration. So, it would make no sense to ask whether I regret my decisions. Decisions are made under inaccessible conditions. The question is therefore nonsensical. From my philosophy classes, I remember the professor would point out how choice and freedom are completely opposed, as when a student chooses not to come to class but rather to visit his girlfriend, he can, all the way to his girlfriend’s home, still think, “Should I not have gone to my class today?”
Freedom was something more profound, metaphysical even. In the same way, I do not think there really is one single migratory life path. Among the more common life stories, and maybe with the exception of billionaires and millionaires changing countries, there is not a migratory life story where the subject does not stop to reflect upon the question: “Did I choose correctly? Did I make all the right choices? Did I do my best? Should I have done more? Should I have done less? When does life really start? Will certain difficulties ever cease to exist?”
All these questions take time to assert themselves in words, while they already live in the inner world of feelings. It is taking me some time to understand what happened. The path to citizenship included making choices like which job to take, what kind of salaries allow for this or that residence permit that facilitates naturalisation. In a way, the last five to six years of my life were oriented toward the goal of achieving citizenship, so I could finally feel safe in the country, though my life is already centred there and has been for more than a decade. Thus, the paths taken all reveal the rifts and reefs eroded by funneling into the centre: the reaching for international civil safety.
No one wonders, then, that after this achievement a reflexive moment should set in. What is the new goal? What should one do with the new degree of freedom?
And still, life finds ways to remind you that bureaucracy was not a privilege of international citizens, nor is autonomy achieved by nationality. I started the process to regain my ability to drive cars. As I already have a driving permit, it feels like an ironic reminder of my lower level of autonomy, a throwback to my teenage years, that I now need to go through both tests, theoretical and practical, to be able to drive cars in Germany. The feeling of never being able to achieve adulthood and being thrown back to phases of not having rights or needing to go through rituals of passage follows one. The obvious advantages of citizenship, the disappearance of fundamental, basic existential fears like the possibility of being deported or the dependence on keeping a job or maintaining residence permits: these are huge advancements in my situation, whereby I cannot yet reveal all the details. But all these very real fears started disappearing one day after citizenship. None of these nightmares can come true now. What to do when you can finally dream, or am I now too old to start dreaming?
These questions are keeping me occupied. Real first-world problems — but real.