American-Hyphenated

"So, you're saying that if we, hypothetically, decided to move to New Zealand and I became a citizen there, I'd still have to pay taxes to the US on what I earned in another country?" I asked in total shock.

Jackson scrutinized his phone and re-read the BBC article again. "Yeah, I think that's what they're saying." He answered, looking up at me. "And if I get my citizenship here, I'll have to as well."

I fumed as I leaned back into the couch. Do other countries do that? Or just Amurricah?

Jackson glanced at his phone again before musing: "How many Americans have passports? According to the article over 1,100 people gave up their citizenship due to the new tax laws."

Huh? How can you be born here in the U.S., live somewhere else, then decide that legally you don't want to be a citizen anymore? My mind blew apart with the idea. "Give up your citizenship? Just like that!?" I cried. "I was born and raised here in New York. I am American to the marrow of my bones, and in this day and age, I can move to another country and renounce my citizenship!? What the very fuck!?" Crazy!

Jackson looked at me with amusement, then said "Guess how many U.S. citizens have a passport? 115 million!" I chewed over the idea. Only a third of Americans have their passport...

"How many New Zealanders have theirs?" I asked.

"75%." Jackson responded. "Oh! And there are more Americans living abroad than there are New Zealanders in the whole world." Jackson laughed. "6 million Americans are living abroad and 4.5 million New Zealanders exist."

My mind was still reeling. "I could give up American citizenship if I am a citizen of New Zealand. I could say: 'I am no longer an American.' Even though: I am no matter what. How? How does that work? That's like saying I am no longer a white woman. I am. I will always be, even if I lived in another country for 30 years, I'd still be an American!" Jackson nodded. You'll always be a New Zealander no matter what. I thought, looking at my boyfriend and then thinking back to the conversation I had the night before with a buddy of mine. We were walking and talking about accents.

"My girlfriend's sister has lived in London for years and has a bastardized American-British accent and as much as she denies she's taken on the local accent, she kinda' has. But, she'll never be a fully accented local, she'll always have her American-isms. Also like British-Mike. He's been here for years, but still talks with an English lilt." My friend said. "No matter what, you'll never be full-on local. You'd be American-hyphenated."

I'd be American-hyphenated no matter what I did with my passport. "More things to think about if we decided to move." I told Jackson. He nodded.

"It's amazing to me that we're still defining ourselves by country." He responded. "People move around so much and will continue to do so. The concept will start to make less and less sense. "

Yeah... what about all the dual citizen babies out there? All the kids that will be born in the next ten years. How many of them will be dual or tri-citizens? How do you define where they are from!? That's an interesting idea. Maybe the concept of country vs. country will start to dissolve in the next few generations. I mean, Europe is already doing it. There are certain rules that the EU as a whole must abide by and there are still separate countries with separate rules, but the EU passport gets you mobility anywhere there. Why shouldn't the international community eventually adopt that idea? In which case, I guess the idea of taxes might be more universal? Or maybe more of a fair ideal? Who knows.

"Right you are." I said with as much of a New Zealand inflection as I could.

Moving

A thin layer of dust had covered the handle. When was the last time I opened this drawer? I thought, running my finger over the dust and drawing a smiley face. It has been over a week since I stayed in my bedroom, and it's no secret. My clothing lies in unkept piles and my objects of no importance are strewn hither and yon in the frenzy I create when I've visited briefly the last few weeks. I looked around at my room and wondered at what point a room is no longer mine, but just a memory: a snapshot of what was once considered wholly mine and is now more of a place holder in the timeline of change.

I've decided that I will be moving in with the Boyfriend. The Musician is now going to be the Roommate. Now that a date is chosen (sept. 1st for the official move-in) I'm in limbo. My stuff is in two different places and I am reminded of when my parents were divorced and I had to carefully plan where I would have my stuff during the week. If I left a textbook at my Dad's on the West Side of Manhattan, it was a major pain-in-the-ass to go back over there and get it before heading to my Mother's on the East Side. I always kept a backpack packed with papers, books, special bras or underwear I wanted to wear in case I wanted it and couldn't easily get to it until Monday next week. Now, 15 years later, I'm finding myself in a very similar situation. Slowly, the piles of my stuff are accumulating at his apartment and every time I return to my room I need to carefully choose what stuff I want to take with me and have just in case I want it later.

I've never lived with a boyfriend before. The idea of coming back to an apartment that is only occupied with someone I love to see and then get naked around makes me excited. My whole life I've shared a space with other people: Mom, Dad, Sister, room mates, visitors, etc. that I've lived with out of necessity. This time, I'm sharing my space with someone who is carefully chosen and selected out of a pool of worthy candidates and is not only living with me, but sharing a bed with me! We'll have to navigate groceries, rent, saving for that special piece of furniture, travel, and the occasional disagreement. He'll be family, friend, lover, room mate, and guardian all in one! What a concept!

Our stuff. Our home. Our dirt. Our food. "Ours" rings through my head every time I come back to My room and look at the stuff sitting unused and covered in neglect. This is what grown-up's do, so I'm told, yet I can't help feeling like I did at 13 when I caravanned my worldly goods around on my back and made the best out of two very different spaces to live in. I'm in limbo until the 1st, dreaming about a world where almost all things are combined and a place to call "home" is not necessarily a place, but the person I will be building it with.

Acceptance of What Is

We were sitting in the cafe we usually sit in. He was sipping his medium iced coffee and reading the latest updates of whatever it was on his phone. He looked up at me, "You ever read cracked.com?"

I looked up from my phone. "Sometimes."

"There's an interesting article on happiness." He said. "I'll read it to you." And he began.

Listening, I couldn't help but feel a sense of immense gratitude flood me. Here we were: sipping our drink of choice, on a leisurely afternoon in the middle of the week, whilst reading a freely written article on our expensive smart phones. We are not married, we're college educated, and neither one of us has any serious commitment to anything. The article went in to detail about how Happiness is not a destination, but a state of being that one goes in and out of. It is a place that one visits on occasion, but can't fully exist in all the time. There is no "When I do this, I will live happily ever after" because there is no happily ever after.  The article also went on to talk about how attachment to material things was in fact the quickest road to unhappiness as the immediate effect of having something new and shiny is rubbed away the minute that new thing is dented, scratched, or replaced by a newer model. Happiness is found more in experiences and anticipation than anything else.

I thought to the wallet and expensive sunglasses that were recently stolen from me. I had spent two hours at the DMV yesterday getting the replacement Drivers License, but honestly: it was all stuff in the end, no? I got my credit cards in the mail and cancelled all my other ones. Now, a week later, my old wallet is gone, but I've replaced everything in it: so no big deal.

My boyfriend kept reading. I listened to his voice as I looked out the window and watched Astoria walk past. The sky was cloudy with what looked like rain and I felt totally comfortable on my stool fingering my now empty plastic cup.

I thought to last night when I spent the evening with friends I hadn't seen in months. We were catching up, chatting about what our lives were like, cheering for our successes and laughing empathetically about our failures. This group of twenty-something people collectively nibbling fresh food, drinking red wine, and openly showing affection for each other despite being male or female or black or white or American or not. I thought to how lucky we all were, and how so many people are not. Is that happiness? To know what could be and what is?

I briefly thought to the wallet I lost and the sunglasses that are on someone else's head. My thoughts were interrupted by my boyfriend finishing the article. "So I guess the best thing is to spend time with people you love and to help others." He said. I nodded. Coming back to the present moment.

"I love you." I said. Smiling.

He leaned in and kissed me. "I love you, too."

We got up and left, throwing away our cups and walking hand in hand. Life is good.

The Art of Being Compulsive

I can't believe it either. Really. This whole thing did come out of the blue. One minute I am a single, somewhat bitter, 20-something who was beginning to believe that cats would be the only means of companionship after all my eggs dried up and I was left to live off the meager wage of a poor and pathetic server for the rest of my days. And then the next minute I'm...

Gone: Just like that. My room is a museum of my old life. I come home to change my bra, throw my dirty shirt onto the neglected pile of sweaty clothes and then I'm off again in his arms for another solid week.

I feel like I have given new meaning to the idea that I've been swept off my feet. In a space of three weeks I went from Single to Dating, had him meet both sets of parents, took him up to the Farm my dad owns in Upstate New York, fell in love, came back to the City and decided (at 1:30 AM on a week night) that I needed to buy plane tickets to New Zealand to meet his family and friends. Oh, and by the way, I'll be gone a month: spending the Christmas/New Year holidays down there. That all just happened in less than 4 weeks.

What happened? Is it chemistry? Why this guy and not another? I have no clear answer other than I know in my bones that this is exactly what I want to be doing and who I want to be doing it with.

I'm no stranger to impulsiveness: I've done stuff like this in the past, and maybe that's why I'm not as wind blown and freaked out as some other people in my position may be. When I was 23 I decided that I needed to buy a plane ticket to Rochester, New York, and fly up there for 5 days to spend the time with a dancer I had fallen head over heels with. Prior to that I had only known him for a weekend. Only spent a few hours with him. He told me, once I was up there, that he had no intention of dating me after I got back to New York and that I needed to move on. Heart crushing, but I valued his honesty. And felt a deep sense of accomplishment in going.

I decided, at 24, that I needed to see the world. And, rather than discuss what we would do and map out how we would do it and where: I bought two tickets for my sister and I to fly to Thailand for a month. Fuck the rest, we'd make it work, right? And we did.

At 21 I decided that Grad school was not an option, so I drove myself up to Boston, in a borrowed car, to go and audition for theatre companies I had never heard of in the hopes that I would have something to do once I graduated university. I got accepted to Actors Theatre of Louisville in Kentucky (prior to that I had never even considered Kentucky a state worth knowing) and once accepted packed up my life and drove myself down with 2 thousand dollars and a bunch of bags to get me through the 9 month apprenticeship. On my own. I'd never lived outside of New York until then.

I think, as I've gotten older, that the more I think and deliberate about things I could do, the more I feel I can't change. However, if I decide on a whim  to make a change: I'll do it. I'll deal with the repercussions later (and I've found that there never are any negative repercussions: only the feeling of accomplishment and elation). Even when we were deciding about renting a car and going upstate to my Dad's farm, my boyfriend and I decided to just rent the damn car (at 2:30 in the morning) and pick it up at noon (that day) to drive up. Fuck it. Let's just go.

And here I am: only dating the guy for two weeks and I bought the plane tickets to New Zealand.

Because: Fuck it. I want to go.

Kiss

Talk. Stare. Hand touch.

Kiss.

Blush. Smile. Wink.

Kiss.

Run my hand through his hair...

Where did I go? It's been three weeks and I've forgotten I had a life before this guy.

Friends? Appointments? Things I wanted to do? I should do them...

Kiss.

I need to do them! Stop Buggering around and Get out of it ya' mongrel! I'm getting my face pashed off and with the pashing comes the forgetting, comes the bliss of relationship adrenaline, comes the "I'll do it tomorrow".

Pash. [Pa-shh.] Verb. To passionately make-out with someone. Which is what I can't seem to stop doing.

When we first met we agreed kissing in public was disgusting and we'd not subject New Yorkers to the sight.

Whoops.

Kiss.

My dad asked if I've hit any red lights with the Musician. Any bumps? Red flags? Things he's done that make you second guess? Nope.

I went onto Facebook and looked at my old crush. He seemed distant. Fuzzy. And my mind threw a blanket over him and I flipped to a picture of my boyfriend and I and I... sigh because my god this is what cocaine feels like.

Kiss. All I want to do is Kiss.

And Talk. Discuss. Chat. Laugh. Be disgusting on the train. Both groan over the ooze of cheese that seems to be created when we sit and stare into each other's eyes and the world goes away and suddenly it's all... gone.

Kiss. Watch. Repeat.

What I'm Thinking

He was looking at me, studying my face. I had just opened my eyes. It was morning (sort of) and we'd only gotten to sleep at 5am. 

I looked back at him for what felt like 20 minutes.

"What's up?" I asked, groggy. 

"Just wondering what you're thinking." He replied, keeping his eyes on mine. 

We looked at each other again. I had just spent two days with this person, taking only a few hours off at a time to do human things, but then only to go back to his bed and exist as a red-hot band of nuclear energy that kicks in when a relationship is in the throws of infancy. I felt the temperature rise in my chest again. 

I recalled the first symptoms of a new relationship: the absolute mind-crushing feeling of desire for one person. To have my entire day altered when I see them; to think about them constantly; to wish, with every piece of me, to be able to push them into me, hold them against my chest and breathe them in. The feeling is mind numbing. I can suddenly spend days doing nothing but lying in bed naked and talking about inside jokes and shared experiences. Plans I made get dimmer and priorities are not so important. I can lightly brush through life knowing someone, not so far away, is waiting for me somewhere and when he sees me will make me his universe, worshipping me and all my flaws. 

I was staring back at The Musician on the bed. Tired. Exhilarated. And a surprised at how quickly everything is escalating. This guy is pretty damn great, and getting better and better each week. I didn't think I'd get into a relationship. I assumed I'd keep meeting more Tom, Dick and Harry's for a while. And everyday that goes by spent in his arms means less and less time spent on what any of the other boys must feel like. 

I tried to convey all of that with my eyes, but instead leaned in and kissed his neck. 

"I'm thinking coffee and breakfast." I hummed from between my pursed lips, my thoughts fading into a fuzzy background noise. 

The blip-blop scoobity doo-da walla walla ding dong

What does it mean to be "dating" someone versus "seeing" someone versus having a "boyfriend"?

Where does one draw a line and declare that something is indeed happening with someone? There is no definitive word that can describe it all and one is left using a lot of vague hand gestures and facial expressions (usually involving a shrug) to try and give an idea about the complicated nature of what's going on on a daily basis with another person. Who happens to be male. And not just a friend.

I'm single.
I'm single?
Wait... am I single?

So, single means I am a free agent. A gal who can look a guy in the eye and say "let's do this" and not feel a shred of remorse about hurting anyone else's feelings by making that choice.

And, therefore, by default, not being single means the opposite.

BUT WAIT! I don't have a boyfriend! Therefore: no relationship! HA!

Nope: Single.
No... I'm... not single.
Wait...

I feel a fear grip me in this regard. On the one hand: this complicated jumble of emotions toward another human being who also has complicated (or not) emotions toward me is exactly what I've wanted! And on the other hand: I'm still thinking with a single-gal brain! "He's hot." and "I'll do you, once I'm drunk, though." and "Can't wait to flirt the hell out of the room." All fly through my mind. I've also got: "You'll hurt him." and "He'll let you down, eventually." whizzing in my brain as well. Ouch.

My Mother told me to relax and live in the moment. "Enjoy yourself. Let it just be and have fun." She said, scrolling through his Facebook profile pictures and exclaiming: "He's Cute, Nat!" I felt myself relax a bit. She's right. I'm trying to define a thing that's a thing without a definition or name.

For now: I'm in a "blip-blop scoobity doo-da walla walla ding dong," with The Musician.

I don't know where it's going, but *shrug* I'm enjoying myself.