fuck Brexit forever
I have been making slow progress on my outstanding list of communications. My father and one of my aunts got very long emails. I have also responded to several WhatsApp and LinkedIn messages from the past year or so.
It's funny, now that i am writing to family, friends, ex-colleagues, people i haven't spoken to in a year or more... they're all getting personalized replies, but the common theme is Brexit.
And it makes me realize that Brexit changed my life. That fucking vote still casts a shadow over everything.
I can't lie and pretend that Brexit made me get Canadian citizenship. There might have been some rustling about it in UK politics back in 2014, but i wasn't paying any attention given i hadn't stepped foot in the country for over 25 years. Still, i guess a part of me knew to hedge my bets, so i flew back over the pond in April 2014 and got sworn in as a Canadian. I went into it feeling pretty mercenary and cynical and even a little guilty about the whole thing, but sitting in the ceremony next to people from all over the world who had chosen to make Canada home brought me to tears.
A few days later i was back in Berlin, living and working in Europe, the place i then called home. Going clubbing every weekend. Speaking a mish-mosh of English, Spanish, French and German with friends and compatriots from all over the EU.
Brexit floored me. It floored all of us. My British colleagues at work who had spent 8 years living Germany immediately filed for German citizenship. British friends with Irish parents started applying for Irish citizenship as fast as they could. My sister who lived on the other side of the world in Australia could not believe her British passport was now worthless. I knew mine was too, and i applied for a Canadian passport the next day. I had to show my British passport as photo ID to get into the Canadian embassy in Berlin and i apologized to the security guard. I apologized to the clerk. I was in tears when i handed over the application form. Every single time i had to show my UK passport to anyone i apologized and hung my head in shame.
I was not even allowed to vote in the referendum that took my rights away because i had not lived in the UK since i was a child. Never mind the fact i went through highschool in Europe. Never mind the fact i was currently living and working Europe as a European citizen. None of that mattered.
I am not sure i would ever be able to forgive anyone for voting for Brexit. The selfishness is so utterly, incredibly unbelievable it's barely comprehensible to me. What the fuck was going through these assholes' minds that they thought "oh, yes, great, let's demolish the birthrights of 75 million British people around the world". 2 million of whom lived and worked in Europe like me, as we had every legal right to do since 1992 at least and arguably since 1957. What kind of spiteful fucking shithead votes to strip not just their own rights away from themselves but also from millions of people who were literally depending on those rights for their very livelihoods? And such a fundamental right as freedom of movement at that. It's disgusting.
God, i am quivering with anger just thinking about it. It still makes me so mad. It breaks my heart. Maybe there is something of "you don't know what you've got till it's gone" because i never much cared or even thought about being a European citizen before 2016. I mean, that's just what i was. It's what we all were, from birth. But looking back now, having lost a lot of shit in my life - family members, friends, lovers, youth, innocence - i can safely say that nothing, nothing has shattered me as much as losing my freedom of movement. I still mourn for it every fucking day.
I mean, clearly i do because when i write to people i haven't spoken to in a year, the first thing that comes out of my mouth is "fuck fucking Brexit". Well, maybe not exactly those words, but i can't stop writing about how fundamentally Brexit has dictated everything i've done after Brexit. I left Europe because of Brexit, because of my shame over my British citizenship and the worthless toilet paper that my passport had become. I went back to Canada when i couldn't handle life as a migrant worker under authoritarian rule any more, to spend time in the land of my chosen citizenship because my birth citizenship was no longer valid. And... it was fine. Canada is okay. Politically it's quite agreeable. The people are nice. The landscape is beautiful. But it's very cold in the winter, and car culture reigns supreme, and it's prohibitively expensive to live in most of the good parts. So i went around the world to see what i could see, and i realized i'm getting old, and that i'm going to have to find somewhere to settle down, and if it wasn't for Brexit then Spain would be right there waiting for me. Or Greece, or Italy, or Malta, or Cyprus, or wherever. Hell, maybe even someday Turkey. But now every single one of those places is off the table for me. My sunny retirement on the Med, blown to bits by a bunch of rich nihilists, shameless racists and every dumb motherfucker who fell for their propaganda.
Man. Fuck fucking Brexit.
So ever since Brexit i am trying to figure out what to do with my life. God, if only my mom hadn't passed away before she moved back to the Netherlands. I could've gotten a Dutch passport. Trust me, i've thought about it. Tried to figure out if i can get one anyway, even though my mother and oma and opa are all dead. Maybe i could run the gauntlet of trying to get that EU passport by leveraging family connections. Go bum around Aruba, Bonaire or Curaçao while all the legalities are getting worked out. Hey, i could work remote for a Canadian company from there. My dad's a New Zealander but he served in the British Army for years, does that count for anything? Maybe i could find my old Spanish friend from Berlin who offered to marry me after Brexit so i could get Spanish citizenship through her. Could i somehow earn enough money to buy my citizenship, follow the example of the Chinese nouveau riche and drop a bunch of cash to become Cypriot? Well, that option has been shut down for a while now, but let me tell you i have looked at all of them.
And it all comes up because i write about work, and how much i hate working. And my family members might be curious why i continue to do it when they know i have enough savings i could idly roam the planet for years. Because working in a country legally means ticking up the counter toward permanent residence. That's it. Even if i don't stay long enough to become a Taiwan permanent resident, at least staying here leaves the counter going up, which makes me feel like i am at least doing something to make a future outside of Canada, whereas if i traveled around as a tourist or "digital nomad" i'd never be progressing at all. I guess most digital nomads don't give a shit, because they're not really nomads, they're just working tourists who always intend to return to the country where they started.
And others, perhaps they're immigrants like me... Although i suppose that term is better used to describe people who just pick one country to go and stop there. So, here i am, a perpetual migrant worker, one who has gone through immigration in a fistful of countries and only come out with new citizenship in one. Meanwhile i lost citizenship in 27. Way i see it, right now i am at negative 25 citizenships, infinitely worse off than when i started.
Man, fuck fucking Brexit. Brexit has fucked my life more than anything. Fuck Brexit.
It's funny, now that i am writing to family, friends, ex-colleagues, people i haven't spoken to in a year or more... they're all getting personalized replies, but the common theme is Brexit.
And it makes me realize that Brexit changed my life. That fucking vote still casts a shadow over everything.
I can't lie and pretend that Brexit made me get Canadian citizenship. There might have been some rustling about it in UK politics back in 2014, but i wasn't paying any attention given i hadn't stepped foot in the country for over 25 years. Still, i guess a part of me knew to hedge my bets, so i flew back over the pond in April 2014 and got sworn in as a Canadian. I went into it feeling pretty mercenary and cynical and even a little guilty about the whole thing, but sitting in the ceremony next to people from all over the world who had chosen to make Canada home brought me to tears.
A few days later i was back in Berlin, living and working in Europe, the place i then called home. Going clubbing every weekend. Speaking a mish-mosh of English, Spanish, French and German with friends and compatriots from all over the EU.
Brexit floored me. It floored all of us. My British colleagues at work who had spent 8 years living Germany immediately filed for German citizenship. British friends with Irish parents started applying for Irish citizenship as fast as they could. My sister who lived on the other side of the world in Australia could not believe her British passport was now worthless. I knew mine was too, and i applied for a Canadian passport the next day. I had to show my British passport as photo ID to get into the Canadian embassy in Berlin and i apologized to the security guard. I apologized to the clerk. I was in tears when i handed over the application form. Every single time i had to show my UK passport to anyone i apologized and hung my head in shame.
I was not even allowed to vote in the referendum that took my rights away because i had not lived in the UK since i was a child. Never mind the fact i went through highschool in Europe. Never mind the fact i was currently living and working Europe as a European citizen. None of that mattered.
I am not sure i would ever be able to forgive anyone for voting for Brexit. The selfishness is so utterly, incredibly unbelievable it's barely comprehensible to me. What the fuck was going through these assholes' minds that they thought "oh, yes, great, let's demolish the birthrights of 75 million British people around the world". 2 million of whom lived and worked in Europe like me, as we had every legal right to do since 1992 at least and arguably since 1957. What kind of spiteful fucking shithead votes to strip not just their own rights away from themselves but also from millions of people who were literally depending on those rights for their very livelihoods? And such a fundamental right as freedom of movement at that. It's disgusting.
God, i am quivering with anger just thinking about it. It still makes me so mad. It breaks my heart. Maybe there is something of "you don't know what you've got till it's gone" because i never much cared or even thought about being a European citizen before 2016. I mean, that's just what i was. It's what we all were, from birth. But looking back now, having lost a lot of shit in my life - family members, friends, lovers, youth, innocence - i can safely say that nothing, nothing has shattered me as much as losing my freedom of movement. I still mourn for it every fucking day.
I mean, clearly i do because when i write to people i haven't spoken to in a year, the first thing that comes out of my mouth is "fuck fucking Brexit". Well, maybe not exactly those words, but i can't stop writing about how fundamentally Brexit has dictated everything i've done after Brexit. I left Europe because of Brexit, because of my shame over my British citizenship and the worthless toilet paper that my passport had become. I went back to Canada when i couldn't handle life as a migrant worker under authoritarian rule any more, to spend time in the land of my chosen citizenship because my birth citizenship was no longer valid. And... it was fine. Canada is okay. Politically it's quite agreeable. The people are nice. The landscape is beautiful. But it's very cold in the winter, and car culture reigns supreme, and it's prohibitively expensive to live in most of the good parts. So i went around the world to see what i could see, and i realized i'm getting old, and that i'm going to have to find somewhere to settle down, and if it wasn't for Brexit then Spain would be right there waiting for me. Or Greece, or Italy, or Malta, or Cyprus, or wherever. Hell, maybe even someday Turkey. But now every single one of those places is off the table for me. My sunny retirement on the Med, blown to bits by a bunch of rich nihilists, shameless racists and every dumb motherfucker who fell for their propaganda.
Man. Fuck fucking Brexit.
So ever since Brexit i am trying to figure out what to do with my life. God, if only my mom hadn't passed away before she moved back to the Netherlands. I could've gotten a Dutch passport. Trust me, i've thought about it. Tried to figure out if i can get one anyway, even though my mother and oma and opa are all dead. Maybe i could run the gauntlet of trying to get that EU passport by leveraging family connections. Go bum around Aruba, Bonaire or Curaçao while all the legalities are getting worked out. Hey, i could work remote for a Canadian company from there. My dad's a New Zealander but he served in the British Army for years, does that count for anything? Maybe i could find my old Spanish friend from Berlin who offered to marry me after Brexit so i could get Spanish citizenship through her. Could i somehow earn enough money to buy my citizenship, follow the example of the Chinese nouveau riche and drop a bunch of cash to become Cypriot? Well, that option has been shut down for a while now, but let me tell you i have looked at all of them.
And it all comes up because i write about work, and how much i hate working. And my family members might be curious why i continue to do it when they know i have enough savings i could idly roam the planet for years. Because working in a country legally means ticking up the counter toward permanent residence. That's it. Even if i don't stay long enough to become a Taiwan permanent resident, at least staying here leaves the counter going up, which makes me feel like i am at least doing something to make a future outside of Canada, whereas if i traveled around as a tourist or "digital nomad" i'd never be progressing at all. I guess most digital nomads don't give a shit, because they're not really nomads, they're just working tourists who always intend to return to the country where they started.
And others, perhaps they're immigrants like me... Although i suppose that term is better used to describe people who just pick one country to go and stop there. So, here i am, a perpetual migrant worker, one who has gone through immigration in a fistful of countries and only come out with new citizenship in one. Meanwhile i lost citizenship in 27. Way i see it, right now i am at negative 25 citizenships, infinitely worse off than when i started.
Man, fuck fucking Brexit. Brexit has fucked my life more than anything. Fuck Brexit.