As a gay US citizen in exile for the past two years, I've had plenty of reason to have a complex love/hate relationship with my country, and I swore to myself that I'd not vote this year - the first time since 1980. But then a couple weeks ago Dante Atkins posted his "Out of the Blogs and Into the Streets"diary.
And I started bawling, because love or hate, second class or not, I am an American, and right then, sworn intentions cast aside, I logged on to the website for the US Embassy in London, downloaded my absentee ballot and filled it out.
There's just no way I can describe the cost of my exile. Sure, I can tally some of the financial cost I've paid ; having to give up the financial security of a good-paying and recession-proof job; the subsequent financial loss as a result of an underwater mortgage, which, with my job, I would have weathered; the abrupt end of contributions to my retirement programs, only half-way through my working career; the slow drain of my savings because I haven't yet been able to get a job overseas, and Petr's just on the entry side of his career, in one of the most expensive cities in the world. There are charts and actuarial table which help me count those things.
But how do you quantify the emotional impact? The loss of feelings of self-worth, that, for good or ill, are attached to an American man's employment? The loss of self-esteem at having all of this knowledge and experience that, in a different employment system and a different culture with a different language, just isn't valued? The cost of having to leave your family behind, when your father, with whom you've always had a close relationship, is dying? The emotional impact of truly understanding that I simply don't have the same rights under our laws as most of my fellow citizens.
For the first six months, it was all pretty exciting; we were, after all, living on the outskirts of Amsterdam, and there was plenty to explore, plenty to learn, a language to study, as I waited for my residence card and work permit. And then, lots of time to apply for jobs. And then time to absorb the impact of reject after reject. After the first six months, I began to spiral down, just a bit. Culture shock. I understood that; having lived and worked overseas early in my career, I understood what was happening - the culture shock cycle was starting to hit, just as predicted. Except for those extra two little bits - no job to get up and go to every day, and the regular skyping home, confirming the slow downward spiral of my father; that's not part of the culture shock cycle.
Nine months in, the cryptic email: "get home as fast as you can. The doctors say maybe a week."
But "the doctors" - bless them, and the nurses, and the nurses' aids, for all they did for my father - are only humans, and they got it wrong. My father died while I was in mid-flight.
I spent three weeks with my mother and siblings, I've always been the planner, the organizer, the taker-care-of-business. Perhaps that's why my father was closer to me than to my older brothers - because in that, I was like him, while the others were more "live for the moment", like my mom. In his latter years he was fairly successful at investing by purchasing "back taxes", and thus, often ended up with pieces of property - houses, land, etc. that had to be dealt with - sell on, keep, renovate, lease out, etc. And because I was like him, I was the one he chose as executor, the one he sat down with on a regular basis to go over new financial wrinkles in his estate planning, to discuss proposed changes.
When confronted with the reality of my exile and his impending death, practicality - ever a hallmark of my fathers' and my personalities - dictated that be pulled out from under me, too. Thousands of miles away, how could I realistically manage his estate for my mother's best interests? And so I signed the legal document transferring executorship to my younger sister. Despite my full agreement, it felt like yet another blow - by going into exile for my relationship, I was shirking my familial responsibilities.
After returning from my father's funeral, my spiral came close - very close - to outright depression; fortunately, thanks to my education and training, I understood that too, and sought the help I needed (yes, socialized medicine works.) Six months ago, my partner was offered a promotion to London, which also meant that I would have more opportunities to find work, too - maybe not in higher education, but something - anything.
So, the last couple of years has been an emotional roller coaster, and I have been bitter at my country.
The US Embassy, as they always do, sent out an email weeks ago, providing details on how to register and submit absentee ballots; I deleted it. My partner Petr, a Czech national, forwarded an email sent out by his company's (a Seattle-based multi-national) HR office, directing their US national employees in London to the embassy's voter information website. I deleted it.
And then, I read Dante's words,
No matter how large a voice one may have online, there really isn't anything quite like the feeling of helping a new citizen register and see the excitement in his face about knowing that he'll be able to have a voice in American civic discourse. Few things can rival telling a felon that no matter what the law is in Arizona, out in the Golden State we let people who have paid their debt to society and are off parole have a voice in our democracy again, and seeing the tear in his eye because you told him what nobody else would. Even something as mundane as helping someone who won't be in town on election day get a ballot abroad is incredibly rewarding. Between Marta, me and the dozen other volunteers working the booth that day, we registered over four hundred people. That is four hundred people who may not have gotten the chance to cast a ballot otherwise: Four hundred different stories, ranging from people who had moved across the world to people who had moved across the street, and all eager for the opportunity to vote for the people they want to represent them from the highest office in the land to the lowest office on the ballot.
and the comment about the tear in the eye of a felon did me in, because I can equate that to my life - the idea that I am second class, and don't have all the same rights as other Americans. The same rights as straight US citizens who fall in love with a foreign national.
No doubt there are some - perhaps many, and certainly some of my own relatives - who would say that I'm not a US citizen in "exile", but a US citizen in "self-imposed exile" and that I should stop whinging about the choice I've made. After all, it was my choice to give up my job; there are plenty of Americans who have lost their jobs and had to readjust their lifestyles and the way they think about their futures. This entire presidential campaign has been characterized in exactly the same way - the "47 percent"; the "99 percent". The "othering" of those who, not by the "there but for the Grace of God", rather, it is implied, by their own pure laziness, stupidity, or lack of self-initiative, haven't "made it", and all they do is sit around whining about it. But, let's face it - that's our American "Pull Yourself Up By Your Bootstraps" culture. Always has been; it's what our raping, pillaging and theft of that continent land was all about, from the very beginning.
But of course, when you're angry at your world, you don't stop to reason out those things, to make rational decisions - even if you're normally a rational person, as I tend to be.
And so, it took that emotional check, provided in Dante's diary, to bring me to my senses. And so, I voted. In Wisconsin, by absentee ballot, for Obama, Baldwin and Pocan.