Today marked my most anticlimactic major life milestone: just before breaking for lunch on the first day back from a 4-day weekend, I glanced at my phone to discover I'd been a dual national for the last twenty minutes. Just like that. In between writing code and dealing with the stress from a recalcitrant sickly teen, a dream first planted in 2009, that slipped through my fingers in 2015, came to fruition with an undetected ping of my smartphone.
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| Translation: Hello, We have the pleasure of letting you know that you are henceforth a French citizen. We welcome you and are happy to count you among our compatriots. |
This blog was all about how to come home from a decade of the expat lifestyle. Instead, it's followed me on the journey to becoming an expat at home: I might be an American born and raised, but I spent my twenties figuring out adulting in a very different world. Now my legal status finally reflects the duality of my expat/at-home experience.
Nicolas and I lived through the horrors of our contrasting nationalities preventing us from staying physically together despite our very valid marriage contract at the close of 2017. At last, we've completed the process of sharing our nationalities with each other. From today onward, neither of our countries of birth can ever deny us the right to be with our chosen family.
And you know what else? That Eiffel Tower, the baguette tradition, the macarons of Pierre Hermé, the foie gras and vin chaud at the marchés de noël - all that cultural heritage is now as much mine as any other Frenchman's. And that makes my heart so full.
