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After a night of very limited and not restful sleep, I rose in the morning to begin dealing with the passport issue. I have to say, when I crawled into bed that night, I felt a little weird. I said to Doug, “There's no way for me to leave Sweden right now. I have no papers.” When you live abroad, the ability to get to your loved ones in another country is a high value. At that time, I had no idea how long it would take the U.S. Embassy to process my papers so I felt a bit weird. It gave me enormous empathy for people who live in that in between place for their whole lives. Hardly a week goes by when we are not praying for someone who is seeking “permission to stay.” They have come as a refugee with no chance of returning to their homeland and yet, they have not been granted permanent stay in their new country. This is a very stressful place to be. I felt a tiny amount of that stress in the few hours I lived without a passport but I lived with it knowing that in due time I would be issued a new US passport, I had money to pay for the documents, late fees, phone calls, etc. and in the meantime had a job, a home, and stability. And I had legal status, just no proof of such. And yet it was still hugely stressful for me. I have gained an enormous amount of empathy for the people in our world who are living in between, for whom permanent stay or permission to stay is a hoped for yet often elusive goal.
I woke up Wednesday morning with one
simple quest: Secure a new passport. I had found out from the U.S.
Embassy that I needed a police report and new passport photos in
order to request a new passport so my first stop was the police
station. The police woman was incredibly kind and helpful and I
could get photos taken in an automated photo booth at my subway stop.
From there I went out to the U.S. Embassy, which is just a short
drive from our house, and waited in the citizens of the US line. I
was the only one in my line while the line for foreigners was
substantially longer. Again, I was so grateful that I lived in a
country where a good embassy exists and that I had access to it as an
American living abroad. In the 14 years that I have lived here in
Sweden, I have never needed the embassy for anything official! I was
never so thankful for this place than I was on Wednesday morning.
They processed me through and soon I was filling out the paper work
for a new passport that they could issue the following morning. Wow.
I couldn't believe it. That meant I could try to rebook my ticket
as soon as Friday. Once I left the embassy knowing that 24 hours
later I would have a new passport, I broke down into tears. I was so
stressed out wondering what was going to happen and after securing
the new passport, I just felt so much relief. It was far more
important to me than I may have even realized, but I was also so
grateful that it could be processed as quickly as it was. I drove to
a friend's house who had pulled together a beautiful coffee time and
it was refreshing to be received by her love and hospitality.
The next ordeal I had to face involved
getting the flight rebooked which was harder than I realized. United
wasn't easy to work with as the prices they were quoting me were
double what the website was showing. Finally we made a decision to
hang onto the credit and look for a brand new ticket that would
better suit out needs. We eventually found a great flight, good
routing, and a good price so we bought it but trying to make a new
good decision about when to travel, what route, what price, etc. was
super overwhelming for me. This whole process was so stressful for
me. I'm not sure why I felt so panicky and overwhelmed. Nothing was
life or death for me. In fact, in the midst of all the craziness I
was feeling, I thought of a young family who have been through a
terrible ordeal with their 8 year daughter whilst living in Sierra
Leone. She contracted typhoid fever and was rapidly deteriorating.
They had to figure out how to get her to a hospital in Ghana to
stabilize her enough to finally get her to London for the desperate
medical attention she needed. Now that is a stressful situation to
be dealing with under duress! The kid is doing well at this point but
I cannot imagine how those parents endured the stress they were under
while trying to make really difficult travel arrangements while
watching their daughter hover between life and death. And so now
that my situation has been resolved and I have new travel plans that
suit me well even though I had to cancel my stop in Chicago, as I
look back on the past two days, I'm pondering why this whole
situation was so stressful. Of course, any time we have plans in
place and look forward to them, when they don't unfold as we had
hoped it's tough. I guess for me I felt such a myriad of emotions,
sadness and stupidity being at the top of the list. Mentally it was
hard adjusting to thinking I was heading for a vacation in the sun
and suddenly faced with staying put at work in a climate that is
quickly losing daylight. And I really wanted to spend some time with
my parents as both of them have significant health issues to deal
with and I want to make every minute we have together count. In the
midst of the craziness of not being able to find my passport, I lost
my mind a bit. I allowed anxiety to grow large and grew uncertain
about my ability to make good choices. Fortunately I was surrounded
by a loving and patient husband and the care and empathy of good
friends. I had to keep reminding myself that this was not a life or
death situation, that I had choices, that money is only money and
that our lives were not going to be in tatters if we didn't get this
worked out and that even if I couldn't travel right now, I would be
able to again in the near future. Even so, the stress that losing my
passport and missing a flight has caused me has given rise to a
variety of thoughts and feelings, but the most predominant is surely
thankfulness. I am so grateful for the privileges I enjoy. And my
empathy for those for whom life is not so easy has grown one
hundredfold in the past 48 hours. Having resources, having
community, having opportunities, having connections...it all makes a
huge difference in the way in which we enjoy life. And when
something trips up those of us with all of the above, it's stressful
because it's a disruption but not because our very lives depends on
it working out in a certain way. For others however who live in
nations at war, corrupt government systems, countries without
opportunities, undocumented refers to a way of life that must carry
more stress with it than I ever realized.
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| Happily reunited with my new passport |
Today I am in possession of my
emergency issued passport and have a new ticket to fly to the land of
my citizenship on Monday. My stress level is decidedly lower. But I
am carrying in my heart, in a special way, those who live without
proper papers in our world, knowing that the circumstances that
landed them there are far more egregious than simply misplacing an
important document and the hope for resolution of such much more
complex than what I have been through over the past 48 hours. Say a
special prayer today for all the undocumented human beings trying to
find their way in a hostile world. Believe me, it is more stressful
than you can imagine.
