An Unexpected Gift

Life has for want of a better analogy been a bit of a roller coaster lately.  No, let me clarify, roller coaster with Nascar and Drunk Driving joyrider's thrown in for good measure.  I traced it out on a blog post months back, but to re illustrate I was not born here in the US.  I have however been a legal resident some 13 years now.

Being an immigrant is such a deep and shadowy well, most of us smile through it and the ignorant questions (yes, we do have dogs in Ireland, yes someone really asked me that once). Over time we learn to use the wattle and sinew from our experience and build domed walls around us with carefully chosen trapdoors and side tunnels, so we can enter and exit these wax work personas.  These same doors are allowed let other's enter, although we in many ways blindfold them and move the doors once they leave our domed shield.

It takes many years and some considerable self awareness to reach that state of understanding.  I have known many an Irish immigrant who went the opposite way, family included, adopting their new culture and country too fast and furiously, burying any ashes from their existence of origin.  I can understand that as well.  The pressure to assimilate and blend in is overwhelming, some days it may just be easier to give in.  This has never been the case for me; in fact as I mature and get older my need for self identity as being Irish grows stronger.  It has taken 13 years but I have finally begun to separate out the two spaces that occupy my existence.  One does not have to push against the other, and the other does not need to pull away so forcefully.

In fact, the more I mature, the more I see that both can coexist comfortably.  This does not have to be a battle where the trap doors and tunnels must move like the stairs at Hogwarts.  One does not out measure the other, despite geography.  This is less about geography, or even culture; this is about identity.  Identity is not born, it is developed, it is nurtured and molded and held and wanted.

By last Fall, 2011, I was ready to cease this tug of war within' my soul and I let it all go.  As such, on Thursday, January 19th, 2012 at 9:45am eastern Standard Time I interviewed and passed for US citizenship.  Well, technically I have been "recommended" for citizenship, a formality.  Last but not least will be a swearing in ceremony and I say farewell to that piece of plastic that has kept me legal these last 13 years, the Green Card (that oddly enough was always a mottled brown.)

I have begun to tear down that muddied dome and throw open it's doors.

There is something infinitely more powerful here though.  Back in 2000 and I was interviewing for my Green Card, the officer conducting the interview insisted if I did not take my then husband's name it was a "severe red flag."  Essentially I was bullied into taking a name my spouse and I had discussed would never be an option.  I left that interview and instead of elation as I had been promised my Permanent Resident's card within' three weeks, but rather in an odd sense stripped of something, something important.

This week, 13 years later the answer sparkled clear, like the Northern Light's on my mind, when the olive skinned, petite and shining officer asked me, "and what name would you like on your naturalization Certificate, your maiden or married name?"  A smile rippled over my face, "I can choose?'.  "Of course."

It's been 13 years, and after I tear down the rest of these muddy, dry clay walls, I get the greatest gift, citizenship of course, but more importantly, I get my name., Deirdre Maria McCarthy-Dillon, my identity.