How Does It Feel To Have A Visa In Your Hand?

So?

Well, it feels like a whole bunch of things. The first, for me, was a sort of light-headedness. Relief. Holy shit, we did it. I’m holding it. Everything worked out in the end. The waiting, the long distance, the separation, the loneliness, is all finite now. We did it.

The second feeling was something like power. Freedom to choose. The walls are down now. The barriers scaled. In my hand is a symbol, a talisman, a skeleton key: I can go and live with my love in the United States whenever I want. The power is no longer with the innumerable procedures and application forms of USCIS. It’s mine.

I apologise for looking like a sociopathic killer in my picture.

 

The third feeling: oh man, I need some coffee and a bite to eat.

My incredibly supportive Mum, who had driven with me to the DX depot in Southampton to pick up my visa package, went with me to a nearby pub for some food and, yes, a strong coffee.

The feelings come and go in waves. We’ve spent a long time, Tina and I, waiting for this very moment. ‘We’ll feel so much better when you have it in your hand‘. True. I do feel better. I also feel the separation very strongly. We should be celebrating together. I should be picking her up and spinning her around, as I love to do. It’s sad – and Tina is experiencing something similar, busy at work 3,500 miles away and unable to be with me for this. Though, as my Mum points out, the whole point of getting the visa is that we’re apart. If she were here, why would we be going through all this? It is hard, but now it won’t be that way for much longer.

Another feeling that keeps hitting me: realisation. We’re really doing it. That bridge between knowing something in your head and feeling the truth of it in your heart… turns out the skeleton key helps you across that, too (I know, I’m muddying my metaphors. Shush). It hits me now, the reality of what we’re doing and how far we’ve come, how little there is to go until we’re together – and we really will be. When you’re going through the visa process you never really let yourself believe that it’s going to work out, not completely. There are so many hurdles, so many things to potentially go wrong – let your guard down and you can miss something crucial. Assume it will go wrong. Over-prepare, over-prepare, over-prepare. But we can let all that go now. Shrug it from our shoulders. Hence the light-headedness. It’s still hard to get your head around, but when it really hits, the feeling is incredible.

Okay, so I still can’t entirely believe it.

One other feeling I have about possessing my visa is a surprisingly difficult one. Some time ago now we planned for me to spend 3 weeks staying with my afore-mentioned Mum before I leave, and I’m a week into that period now. It’s very important to me, and to my Mum, and I absolutely don’t want to cut it short. I’m treasuring it. The conflicting feeling, however, is this: I can fly whenever I want! My one way flight is booked for 15 days from today, a tiny length of time that feels like forever. That’s when I’m flying, the flight is paid for, and this time with my Mum is precious to me. But I could get on a plane this afternoon. The visa works whenever I want it to. Feels a little odd to have these two contrary feelings in me at once – I want to stretch out this time, and I want it to hurry the hell up – but I do feel them both.

Ah, the trappings of power, etc etc.

So if you asked me to sum up all my visa-related feelings in a word…. what does it feel like? It feels GREAT. We made it. We did it. It takes a long time and a lot of work but, crucially, you get there in the end. If you’re going through the same thing, keep your spirits up as best you can. Over-prepare like a crazy person. Time will pass. You will get there. And when you do, drop me a line and tell me how good it feels.