Tuesday, April 10, 2007

I will break my way out when it rains

So it seems that once again I have let it happen. I’m not sure exactly what it is about me that attracts me to these situations, but it is definitely something that I need to look into.

While I haven’t been posting, I have been working my ass off at the Legal Clinic, having varied and wonderful adventures in the Family Law system. I have also been dating someone. We have left it gloriously undefined, although I guess it is fair to say we aren’t sleeping with anyone else at the moment… He’s positively the sweetest guy I’ve ever dated. Kinda one of those “care-taker” guys, but without being overbearing or invasive. We started dating late February with the most phenomenal first date ever, so it’s fair to say that we haven’t been seeing each other long. But true-to-form, about two months in, Im starting to feel for him.

He happens to be Nigerian. He’s here on a student VISA, and had planned to stay in the country getting his education after he left the local college where he currently works. He and I have both known that he would be moving away as soon as the end of April. That is, the end of this month. There was something about knowing that going into things that made we hold onto the hope that 1) if things went poorly, he’d be gone soon enough and I wouldn’t have to deal with any residual ugliness and 2) if it went well, he’d only be a couple of states away and we could play that by ear.

Well, he told me tonight that he found out last night that the US Immigration Services would not be granting him a work VISA to stay here next year. He will either be returning to Nigeria permanently or studying in Europe next year.

Anyone who has known me for 10 minutes knows that I like to fix things. For Clients. For Friends. For Family. And definitely for those I’m dating. But there is simply no fixing this. The US Immigration service is an absolute bureaucracy that is absolutely inescapable. I had already been allowing myself to have those, “What if:” future thoughts about our relationship in which I realized that even if this person was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with (and Im not saying he is) that because I can’t get legally married to him in the United States (thanks to Clinton and DOMA) I could never get him citizenship here based on our relationship. I have often felt like the gay-marriage issue was unfair, but never quite so much as the feeling that in order to pursue a long-term relationship with this guy we would have to a) have him come up with some convoluted and involved reason for permanent immigration to the US or b) we move to Nigeria and find ourselves quickly stoned to death for our relationship.

I don’t like those options.

So. Now I find myself in a relationship which I very much like, with an expiration date. I don’t quite know how to deal with that. I slowly find this guy becoming a wonderful addition to my life, and I have to deal with the fact that it will soon be subtracted.