Latest / Dits & Dahs / permanent residency and the rogue gamepiece
Transcript
- Sue: I'm chatting this morning about two thoughts. One is, in the United States, the news broke yesterday that there will be more stringent application of the law regarding immigration of non-U.S. citizens wishing to become a citizen and naturalize in America. The idea that folks who have already attained the green card to live here, whether they be a spouse of a U.S. citizen, as I am and was with my husband, of which I'm going to speak about, or working here, et cetera, now have to leave the country to complete their immigration process by reapplying and awaiting the completion of that process before entering the United States again. The law was always thus, no one was ever meant to be able to live without the appropriate paperwork application in place to permit a non-U.S. citizen from living in the United States outside whatever visas and such were available. It was confirmation with the birdies. I met my husband at a time in my life where I was traveling for business to Europe and had recently changed jobs to works for a specific composer in house who also did a lot of work in Europe. And so when I met Gareth online at a non-dating site, it was an instant, well, I'm not traveling there for business as I used to, but it's within the realm of possibility. The next time I go over to the UK. I'll have tea or coffee with him in Wales, you know, and continue on with my UK or EU business and life goes on, right? And he was of the same thinking. So when he came to the United States for his blind date with me, at the time he could stay 90 days as a tourist, as a visitor, without needing a visa to do so. And during that time that we were together, I impulsively asked him to marry me. And given the age of my elderly parents, we took it upon ourselves to get married during that 90-day period that he was here. That's not what you're meant to do, first and foremost, legally. Non-U.S. citizens have always, and the law that I'm aware of, had to apply to come into the United States if... you are intending to marry a U.S. citizen. And you file the paperwork and you wait and wait before you get permission to come in. And this is over 20 years ago, but the laws at that point were very clear about this trindgency by which, if you decided to get married, had to follow the law. So for me, when we got to the county clerk in the place where my husband and I were going to get married, and they issued us a married license without asking, for any ID regarding paperwork, passports, yeah. But there was no questioning on behalf of the local government official because it's not a common thing at that time. You know, they're aware of it, but it's not their daily routine. So as a result, you know, it was a very easy process to get a marriage license. And legally at that point, we're married. It still doesn't grant him residency, but we were always searching online and had access to attorneys in the UK and... to ask questions. We proceeded with the somewhat common knowledge amongst this crew of people that once he was here, it was agreed at that time that the best choice was to stay here in the United States and go through the paperwork process waiting period. That's not legal either, but it was the kind of advice that we leaned into. And this was what was going on at the time. At the point when my husband did obtain his social security number, and wanted to put the utilities in his name, there was a surcharge because the social security number was new. The rest of the story went that we had filed our paperwork within, I don't know, a week after we got married, and he came to live with me. That winter was very brutal to him. He wanted to go to Hawaii. And this is where our story corrected itself because his vote was, as I say, to go to Hawaii. My vote... was, hey, on the end of your visa waiver, you need to leave the United States and return to get a new waiver. Another 90 days, whatever period of time gaps between the end of one and beginning of the second. So he assented to my side, and we left the United States to travel to Bermuda at a lovely time. And then upon our showing up at the airport to go through immigration and customs, the officer chose to exclude my husband. from entering the United States because we had made an application for him to emigrate and that because of that and then him choosing to leave the country, that automatically meant that that application was null and void. And then so you think, well, okay, then that means he becomes a tourist again and enter the country. No, so we entered a period of time where my husband lived in Canada, where he is a British citizen, could reside. provided that he could take care of all of his finances, but not work. Fortunately, that was his situation at the time. So he settled there in Kingston, Ontario, and I drove up every other weekend for a period of 14 months to visit him. I was one sleep deprived bunny for that period of time, but when the time came... about 14, as I say, 15 months into it. He came home with me one day in the Jeep and his teddy bear as a legal resident of the United States. And so then began our journey to eventually qualify for him to naturalize as a citizen, which culminated in July of 2013. Gareth made himself known at that ceremony because he brought the judge that used to sit in those chambers just as backup should anything go wrong. As a human, This is a horribly gut-wrenching place to be. I completely empathize. And as somebody who has gone through this period of not being able to be with the one to whom you are married, thinking that that is above all else law, which it isn't, but nonetheless, having that little chip on your shoulder, you make the best of the situation and continue forward with the process as patiently and as gracefully as possible. But it is a huge huge for us, financial impact. And because my husband was fortunate to be coming into the U.S. with money, kind of made our lives tolerable in a way that others won't ever have that experience. And we're not having an easy time with our income right now and cost of living anyway, are we? But there is a level of understanding that has to come to be such that you have to be able to take care of each other independently. I will also say you will come out the other side. I'm here to tell you that. It's part of the reason why I go on about the ability to sustain myself even in this situation of only having part-time income, more than enough time to create this content and have no compensation for it, which is fine. But nonetheless, it's occupying time that should be occupied with a job of some sort. And I've had to learn that the only thing that you can help is to be conservative. and how you consume things to the best of your ability. And with food, that is the most expensive thing out there. Highly recommend gaining a little experience with the many ways that you can cook rice and beans as cheaply as possible. Stock up on some cans of tin fish if you're able to eat such items of food. You'll have to figure out your baseline. But to take those essence of survival food, make the most of it. Grow your own veg, you know. supplement it with fresh food when you can. Right now, a year's supply of dried rice and beans is about a thousand dollars. That will keep you alive. So you would start adopting these kinds of mindsets to get through these situations. The amount of people that are processing these claims has reduced and is not being replaced. So whatever amount of money that you have in a bank now might have to be what you survive on. just in case. I think one of the things that this news item has flagged up for me was the times that we were going through the process that my husband and I often commented that if the United States required its citizens marrying other U.S. citizens to go through the same process, I'd say about 55 percent of people wouldn't bother to get married. And it is frustrating on the level of not having enough people, as I mentioned. process the applications and not having enough cash on hand to survive regardless of whether you're going through this process or not. Most people can't afford to do anything but live paycheck to paycheck. And then you combine those two things together and now having to maintain double expenses is really hard to say that you're going to get through that, isn't it? That's kind of the burst, the self-actualization bubble on all fronts at once and deflate it all and just deplete everything that's in there. potentially. Not me. We did it. Many do. And I wish you well on the journey because I will say that it was absolutely worth it. My costly mistake for taking us to Bermuda only delayed something else that might have happened to separate us. Nonetheless, it was an emotional abuse that he thrust on me for the rest of our marriage, which also wasn't fair. But here I am. I've worked that through. It's no different than when people, and I'm going to segue into the other thought that I had this morning. The second thought I had this morning was thinking about all those times in my life where people who aren't musicians or have even a professional connection to some aspect of the music business give me advice about just that, as if it's meant to be constructive, helpful. And this is where I have spoken of in other blog posts about It's none of their business. And those that are inquiring and poking in to something that they know nothing about, even if they are a loved one who is going under the premise of, I'm only thinking of your success, dear, or whatever plate they have. It feels like they are essentially the player in the game and you are their game piece. And that you are the game piece that will do everything and be controlled by that who is the player. Without question, after all, it's a game. The fact that it involves the game piece of someone who is a human soul, another physical vessel with a human soul, is just a delusional thought. That's not to say that you get stubborn or prickly about it either, but it is this awareness of being able to see that when people feel that they have entitlement in your life to tell you where it's at without having any legit reason. Because honestly, emotional, connection, loved one connection, that's not a legit reason to know, by the way, my loved ones know that. We know not to do that to one another. That's a healthy, unconditional, loving relationship as far as where I'm sitting. But when you recognize that there are others who don't see that, just remember that it really is helpful to view it as they do, which is to say, when you share that same vision of understanding that you are in some sort of mental mind game, with another soul that is implicitly or explicitly at times controlling you as a game piece. And you have spoken to say, no, I see that's happening, not a game piece. Go play your game somewhere else in the universe and have a nice day. And you choose to refuse. Well, then of course I'm going to defend myself. But by defend myself, by diving even further into what I do best, which is to make music. And then it looks like some people occasionally like to listen to it. Well, that's fine. I don't do it for that. It's just the idea here that there are times in our lives when we are floundering with what direction to, what path to take, where to go. And we unknowingly open ourselves up in a way that might allow a controlling entity of some sort to get into our realms unnoticed until it. It's time to realize, no, you don't need attachments along with you. You just don't need to have any attach of any kind with you on your journey. What you might need, depending on what your destiny has planned for you, is to be able to do that with someone who's also meant to be on the same path, a shared destiny. Who knows? You won't know that if you have attachments on you. You'll never be able to see clearly. So those are two thoughts, all about valuing the relationships we have. with other humans in an unconditionally loving way. It's meant to be whatever you go through, you'll get through to the other side and prosper. I'm here living testimony to that. And once you understand that you have to control yourself, self-actualize, and do all that stuff on your own, because after all, when you apply your personal touch, it stands out like no other. So why would you? Why would you allow somebody else to apply their touch to you? Once you understand that and that you control you, you're gonna self-actualize if that's what you wanna do. You're gonna be the bestest you can be. It might take a long time to get there, but now you know because you've gone through something else that's required you to be graceful and patient along the way that you can do that again. And in the meantime, you know how to do sort of a baseline survival so that you can get the most out of it when you need to get the most in the bank and keep it there. and have patience and grace, as I keep saying. ⁓ and forgiveness. Yeah, boatloads of forgiveness. Thanks for listening to the mundane thoughts that I'm having on this Saturday morning. I appreciate you.