French Again

Yesterday I had an appointment to visit the Consulat général de France à New York. I actually arranged the appointment a couple of months ago, before my trip to San Francisco, to renew my French passport. This is something that's been weighing on me for years, because the passport expired long, long ago, and I was really scared it was too late to get it renewed. I thought the French government might be like, "too late! We don't want you any more."

There was also the problem of gathering together sufficient identification to satisfy the requirements. I didn't have much. Just the passport and a few scraps. I had my American passport, and other American documents; but not much French stuff. When I made the appointment, I expected to get a big explanation about how I didn't have nearly enough material to move forwards, and to come back when I had more material.

Instead, it was so great! It turned out that one of the scraps in my folder was actually a card that had been issued by the consulate itself long ago; and they were able to accept some of my American ID cards as well.

So they actually printed out my French birth certificate (certifying that I was born in America), and gave it to me. Hot diggity! They also gave me a new consulate ID card. And they said they'd get my passport to me in about 10 days. No need to make another appointment. All I have to do is walk in and pick it up.

It's such a weight off my mind. For years I've been kinda sorta avoiding this whole problem, because I was scared of how it would turn out. And now, abracadabra, it's as good as done.

When I left San Francisco, I actually considered moving to Google's Paris office instead of the New York office. Ultimately I decided I wanted to be close to my parents, who were getting older, and my sister, who was raising her own young kids. But I gave a lot of thought to going to Paris instead.

In Paris, I would have been within a metro ride of a dozen of my cousins; and within a convenient train ride of over a hundred more. I also would have had the freedom to travel anywhere else in the European Union; to improve my ability with the French language; and to get real health care for the first time in my life.

Sometimes I regret not going to Paris. It would have been an amazing adventure. But the whole passport issue weighed on me very much then too; and I was just scared to deal with it. And of course, I really did want to be closer to my own immediate family. But sometimes I think about what might have been. And dealing with this passport stuff yesterday has dredged a lot of those feelings up again.

So.... what made me make the appointment now, at long last? Why not when I had actually been considering moving to France? Why not before then? All I can think of is that maybe I finally just felt comfortable enough with myself to confront it at last. And that really fits my sense of the situation pretty well.