While I chose to move to the United Kingdom on a whim, and live in Cambridge out of inertia, I never vacillated in my basic intent to stay in this country.
I’ve paid dearly for the choice – in real terms through double taxation and massively high cost of living; I have three times as much cash, and live like a pauper.
There have been other subtle but nonetheless true costs, like the degradation of what I consider the nifty parts of my career: performance and touring. And then there are all the intangible and hugely painful bits like distance from friends and family.
Several people I love have died, and I did not get to say goodbye.
I have written and talked about these issues over the years, but never allowed myself to reckon the true damage. I denied the extent to which I felt trapped, because how ridiculous would that sound?
The opportunity to move to England sounds like a childhood wish fulfilled, because it is. Life on the river, and the ability to travel around Europe at will, wintering in the south of France, weekends in Prague or Rome, sounds like a dream, because it is.
To complain would require a level of sophistication approaching insanity.
But the fact that I am properly appreciative of the advantages I enjoy does not mean there are no consequences. The choice to emigrate (like the choice to parent) implies and explicitly requires enormous compromise in all other areas of life.
As the days and years accumulated I did not even realize how much this mattered. My problems, while rational, were absurd. If I have no sympathy for this kind of complaint, then why should anyone else?
I tried to be rude and dismissive to myself, but that didn’t seem to help very much. So I reverted to the favored old solution of humming and ignoring the problem.
Over the last thirty-eight years, I have worked endlessly hard, conquered fears, vanquished enemies, achieved all desires, forced every wish to come true, by whatever means necessary. Hanging out in an idyllic university town for awhile didn’t seem, in the abstract, such a challenge.
But, by the time I applied for permanent residency, I had capitulated all … hope. More than at any other time in my life, including but not limited to the cancer years, I truly felt despair. If I can’t enjoy this – this – mess, then what would ever sort things out? What is the point?
The fact that I disapprove of existential crises does not immunize me against the disease.
When the permanent residency was granted, I allowed myself a tiny thrill of satisfaction for a job well done. I did not expect the buoyant waves of delight that followed, sparked by the possession of something so far out of reach that I could not even fathom hoping for it.
“Indefinite leave to remain” – a simple piece of paper with some fancy seals – affixed to my passport – what does that mean anyway?
It means I have the right to live, work, buy houses, pay taxes, educate my children, die, pay more taxes, in a country where everyone is entitled to health care absolutely. My children share this privilege. They are safe. We are safe. Our neighbors and local friends are safe, or safe enough. For the first time.
Despondency, anxiety, and gloom vanished, to be replaced with a new set of questions. Beyond duty, without considering others, what do I want? If I can live anywhere, where should I live?
Between now and June I will have to decide – stay in the UK and apply for citizenship? Go back to the states? Something more exotic?
Who knows? The only thing I can report with any certainty: I am having a lot of fun.