Dual Citizenship

And a whole lot of patience.

One hundred and ten days ago, I landed in Sicily. Seventy-six days ago, I sent off my my documents to apply for citizenship. And today? I was finally accepted as an official citizen of Italy.

When we got the call that my papers were ready, I was, initially, somewhat ambivalent. For one thing, I was unable to go on a trip I’d been planning for months because I’d surpassed my 90-day allowance in the Schengen Area, which was pretty disappointing. For another thing, this process has really worn me out. Not to mention the fact that, as it turns out, when a bureaucrat tells you it will arrive in X amount of time, best course of action is to plan on it taking much longer than they promise. Ironically enough, being called in with the news that my citizenship was accepted ended up being a two-day ordeal. Case in point.

In any case, now that the documents are here and it’s finally official, I feel like I can relax. I’ve been pretty tightly wound for the last few weeks, as have my parents. It’s not lost on me that this process has been tough on them as well. I’m sure the municipal employees are equally thrilled to be done with this process, as we were in that office what felt like all the fucking time.

Before I go further into this, let me first say that absolutely none of this would have been possible without my parents’ willingness to let me live with them this whole time. Doing this without a job on top of paying any living expenses would have been impossible for me. I’ve been cracking all kinds of jokes about budget hacking my way to dual citizenship, but seriously—despite all my whining—I am endlessly thankful that they took me in so that I could do this. Special thanks also to my mother who was my Italian spokesperson through this entire process. My dad and I would have had far less patience with this process if we didn’t rely primarily on her for translation services.

This process was nothing short of frustrating. First and foremost, there isn’t a proper comprehensive list of all the things you need to have to start this application whatsoever. Not online, and certainly not at the municipal office. Multiple times, we’d go into one office only to have to turn around and go get something we were missing and then go straight back. God, it just makes your head spin. The amount of offices my mom and I have sat waiting in is absurd. Why there isn’t ONE place to take care of all of these things… I suppose it’s like that everywhere but damn is it aggravating. And to add to it, the employees you’re dealing with don’t really care about your timeline at all.

Even if they did care, though, the further up the chain you go, the less important you become. Eventually, you’re just another name on another piece of paper that needs review and approval. The whole system is fucked. The offices—everywhere, not just in Sicily—are run by people who are lazy and not only hate their jobs, but also don’t completely understand how to do their jobs. This ordeal was worse than any DMV visit I’ve ever had the displeasure of making. But if the DMV was in another country and you had to explain the differences in counties and countries and states because for some reason your birth certificate and passport have the county you were born in instead of the state and/or city, and the county you were born in? is also one of the 50 states. The layers of this…… you really run out of words.

This post feels a bit rushed—I usually take more than a day to write and read over what I write—but I wanted to publish it the day of, and I wanted to put it behind me. In all honesty, I started writing this days ago, in my notes app, before I even knew my papers had been approved, and I was much angrier about it all. But it’s done now. The man who made my ID card at the office this morning added 10cm to my height, so I suppose the Italian version of myself can just be a little taller. Whatever—it’s done! Next week, we go back to the office (for the last time ❤️) and pick up my ID card. We’ll go to another office (💔) and apply for my passport. That will take another several weeks to arrive, but I’m able to travel within the EU freely with my Italian ID and that’s all that matters at this point.

It’s kind of hard to believe that I’ve been here for 110 days. Maybe that’s because January lasted about 55 of those days and now suddenly we’re two weeks into April. I guess also when you spend so much time waiting for something to happen, time doesn’t pass like it normally does. I was hoping to blink in January and wake up in March with my documents in hand but in reality I sat and I watched and I waited. There’s probably more that could be said about this whole ordeal, but it’s been such a long time. All the watching and waiting is done and now I’m just wishing things would slow down a little bit.

Having already missed out on one trip, I was very anxious for things to speed up. It was sort of getting down to the wire with my documents, so I was starting to get nervous about whether or not I’d get stuck on this island by myself, because in thirteen days my parents are heading off to go hike El Camino for two weeks! Very excited for them—more so especially now that I know I’m not going to be stuck here. And I have my own travels planned while they’re walking that I’m equally excited for! Spring is here at last! I’m writing more than I have in years and this is only the beginning!

I can’t believe this is done.

In short—things are looking up!

Arrivederci ;)