My sig line: I'm one of those lucky homos in a bi-national relationship - at the age of 49, all I had to do was give up my career, leave behind my dying father, my aging, diabetic mother, my family & friends and move to the Netherlands. Easy peasey!
That's what this diary is about.
Last Thursday, when Kos posted his "post" about Clarknt67, updates and future nagging, I immediately decided that it was past time for me to subscribe to Daily Kos.
I made that decision because, for the last year - a remarkably difficult (for me) year - Daily Kos has been my lifeline. But, I didn't plan to diary about it, because, well, I'm mostly a "background" person.
A couple of days later, Onomastic wrote her diary, which included this comment by Richard Cranium:
There are many who are too embarrassed... (16+ / 0-)
...to stand up and raise their hand. Very few people have the courage to ask for help when they need it.
Anyone who would rather not raise their hand could recommend this comment, perhaps?
to which I replied
I'll add my verbal rec, especially for this: (8+ / 0-)
Very few people have the courage to ask for help when they need it.
I bought myself a lifetime, just hours before this diary was posted, because, although I am a pretty low-level participant here, DK has been my lifeline for the last year.
I'm one of those lucky homos in a bi-national relationship - at the age of 49, all I had to do was give up my career, leave behind my dying father, my aging, diabetic mother, my family & friends and move to the Netherlands. Easy peasey!
by aggieric on Sun Dec 11, 2011 at 08:29:32 AM CET
And that's when I decided to write a diary testimonial (given my evangelical upbringing, I really should be using the term "witness") about why Daily Kos has been so important to me during the last year. Why it has been my "lifeline."
My sig line, right up there in italics, holds the very kernel of my reasoning. In the last year, my life has changed in ways I can hardly comprehend. Fifteen months, really, but round numbers always seem to work better.
More than two years ago, I faced the fact that I had to make a decision regarding my almost three-year-long same-sex relationship with a Czech national. He'd come to the US for graduate school, we'd met in his very first month, and from that first meeting, it was magic. He'd been able to stretch out a two-year program with an internship, but six months into that, we had to face reality - the coming expiration of his student visa. We looked at all the options - from a PhD program (his heart really wasn't in it, which, having been there myself, I could understand) to marriage with a woman. We actually had three (!) women tell us, the very minute we raised the topic, that they'd marry him, just as a form of civil disobedience, only to have all three back out, once they started exploring the realities of marrying a foreign national.
So, the company he interned for wouldn't work to keep him in the US, but they were happy to offer him a job in Amsterdam. Amsterdam. When I said "We're going to Amsterdam", everyone - EVERYONE - I knew and/or worked with, were congratulatory. OHMYGODYOU'REMOVINGTOAMSTERDAMHOW GREATISTHATI'MSOJEALOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And, I understand. Despite having to self-exile for my relationship, I'm fortunate. Compared to many people, we're fortunate. He has a job. We're living in an agglomeration of nations which recognize our relationship. And, it's Amsterdam.
But that's only the story on the surface. Read my sig line again. There's a lot there, packed into the character limit that DKos imposes on sig lines.
My father/mother, for example. Six weeks before I was scheduled to fly to Amsterdam, my father went into the hospital, with his second major heart attack. Having been a Federal employee, he had "Cadillac" insurance, so his care wasn't a worry. He had triple bypass surgery. Three weeks before I was scheduled to fly to Amsterdam, he was still in the hospital, and I was there, at the U of Colorado Medical Center, using up my vacation time, sitting with him, because he wasn't getting better. Finally, in early September '10, the day of my flight came, and I flew to Amsterdam, to join my husband, who had moved over three months earlier.
I should interject here that, despite his conservative, evangelical outlook, my father and I had a good relationship. He struggled with my sexual orientation, but he was a good, loving father. He taught me all the things a father born to a farm life in the 30's would teach his son: hunting, handyman-around-the-house stuff, do-your-own-minor-car-repair stuff, grow-your-own-garden stuff.
Be a man. Be stoic. That sort of real-American-manhood stuff. It's not all bad.
My father spent another eight months in hospital before he died. In his weakened state, his prostate cancer, which had been in remission for 10 years, had reasserted itself. My brother called me on Friday, Apr 2, 2011, telling me "the doctors say days. Hurry."
I didn't make it. My father died while I was still over the Atlantic.
I am exiled because "my" country doesn't recognize my relationship, and because of that, I wasn't at my father's side when he died. Not to mention that I wasn't able to be there for my mother, last month, for Thanksgiving. Or this month, when Christmas arrives. Her first in 54 years without her husband.
That's not all of it, though. Read those italicized words again. In addition to everything else, I had to choose between my relationship and my career.
Understand that: My experience is NO DIFFERENT than that many Americans right now, who have been laid off from work. The one who had been making a good living suddenly doesn't. And, there's not even the bleak prospect of unemployment for me. And so we live on the salary of the one who makes the least. (Admission: he's younger than me. He has his MBA. He's only three years into his career. He's multi-lingual. Likely, there's nowhere to go for him but up. But that's not where we are right now - right now we're in entry level work, which isn't giving him any credit for his MBA. At least it pays the bills.)
BUT: my experience is VASTLY DIFFERENT than that of many Americans right now. I "chose" to give up my job/career. I had a CHOICE. Choose one: love/relationship; career.
What would you choose?
Now, I'd never classify myself as a "typical" American man. But in so many ways, I am. After all, I am the product of my father's rearing efforts. My career. My self-sufficiency. To most American men of a "certain" age, those things equate to their self-esteem, and I am, whether I will it or no, one of them. I've been in the Netherlands for fifteen months, and have, for nine months, had my "work permit". But I haven't been able to find a job. My husband leaves every morning for work, and I face a day. What do I do with it? You might think there are lots of options, but there aren't. I might go to the market, if we need some food. If it's sunny, I'll probably take a bike ride, just to get out and get some exercise. I look at the job lists. There aren't too many - my particular field is somewhat specialized, in education -i it doesn't really translate to Dutch higher ed; I apply even for jobs that I know I won't have a chance at. People keep telling me "You're an American - everyone wants to hire you. But that's just not true. I was spoiled in the US. My entire career, if I applied for five jobs, I'd get a phone interview with one of them. Apply for 10 or 15, I'd always get a campus interview. Doesn't work that way here. I've looked into volunteering, but.... my Dutch isn't good enough for jobs, so it's not good enough for volunteering, either. I work at learning Dutch, every day, but it's just not going fast enough.
I am exiled because "my" country doesn't recognize my relationship, and because of that, I have lost my career. And in this economy, and at my (still relatively young) age, I may never get it back.
Oh yeah. My mortgage. Early into that new relationship, I bought a condo, in a mid-sized capitol city which is home to a major research university (and which, in the last few months, has been in the news a lot because of a lot of protests at the state capitol, and was, by and large, a precursor to the OWS movement.) That mid-sized city had an out-sized housing market. And more fool I, I bought a condo downtown, at the peak of the market. The good news is it's rented. For the third time in 15 months. Bad enough that I've never been able to rent it for my costs, much less for a profit, but note that again - three renters in 16 months. And with one really problematic renter over the summer, let's just say that it's only a matter of time before I have to default. If I had a job, perhaps I could subsidize my property in the US. But in this economic climate, is that even worth it? A few of you out there in DKosland understand what a mortgage default does to your self-esteem.
So... Forced, by the socio-political atmosphere of my own country to chose.
Choose between love/relationship and family.
Choose between love/relationship and career.
Choose between love/relationship and the all-important-God-will-strike-you-dead-credit rating.
And all of this is where DKos has been my lifeline. From the bleakest day to the brightest, I log in first thing in the morning, and read everything. EVERYTHING. I log in again in the evening, before bedtime, and read everything. EVERYTHING.
I may not be on the top of the rec list on a weekly basis, but don't ever tell me that a virtual community isn't a real community, because this community has kept me from losing my sanity.
And so, after years of not doing so, despite not really having the money to do so, I chose once again: I chose to spend a bit of that money subscribing to my lifeline.