Indefinite Leave to Remain

Andrew Sullivan, one of my favorite bloggers, has been anxiously awaiting a decision on his green card application.

And then it came.

The entire post is worth a read but this passage in particular caught my attention. From Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Dish...

And I do not know right now what to do or say.

But I do know this. America remains the great dream, the great promise. For all its dysfunction, it remains an ideal, a place where the restlessness of the human mind and soul comes to rest in a place it constantly reinvents and forever re-imagines. I know this in my bones, perhaps more than many who take this amazing mess of a country for granted. But for the first time in my life, I do not feel somewhere in my psyche that I am displaced, unwelcome, an impostor.

I have indefinite leave to remain.

Between the shrillness in the political discord, entrenched discrimination, severe economic inequality, and a host of other dysfunctions (military spending, environmental issues, etc., etc.), I dream, at times, of a day when we may live somewhere else. But then occasionally I come across a reminder, such as Andrew's post, that despite its many ugly warts this is a wonderful country on so many different levels.

I just have to remember that folks like this, though vocal, aren't the majority.



Congratulations Andrew and welcome to the United States of America, warts and all.