Posts Tagged ‘dream’

Yesterday we went to my bosses BBQ party and talked to one of my colleagues. It is no wonder that at some point the conversation came to our Greencard win and surely my colleague wanted to know everything about it! When we finished our story he brought up a very good point, that we sometimes just forget to be thankful for!

It is not a natural thing to win that Greencard in the perfect situation we did win it in! We have each other! We are young! We have careers! We have no children, yet! And we wanted to get married anyways! What time would have been more perfect for this win than the this?

When we got that one special E-Mail we didn’t even have to think about whether we do it or not. We knew that we would get married! And we knew that this was the right choice! Sure we both had our doubts about anything, but I can’t imagine the doubts we would have had, if Flo won this Greencard a few years earlier or later!

My colleague told us that he envies us for this chance! Not only the chance of having the Greencard, but the chance of being able to move without giving it a second thought! At that moment I felt kind of ashamed. Since we got the Greencard I always am more than thankful for that chance! But I do not often think about the great situation I am in! It is not natural to have a partner that dreams the same dream, that comes with the same background and that wants the same future!

This again shows me that Flo and I are just perfect together. And that this us our perfect little dream! Now I am more than curious to see, if this little dream will blow up and be the dream of a lifetime or if it will only last for a few years and stay in our hearts forever as this tiny little dream we both had! Either way I will always be thankful! For Flo and for the Greencard!

Winning a Greencard kind of feels like giving birth to a child. Like baby, the Greencard goes everywhere with you, doesn’t leave you time to be alone for a single evening and always needs to be cared for. Winners or future winners should be aware of that! Once you own a Greencard, you will own it for the rest of your life! If you don’t get an abortion within the winner progress or give up your Greencard in it’s first years, you will live your life with and for the Greencard!

Here are some things you should mind when living with the Greencard:

1. Never leave the Greencard unattended!
I don’t actually mean that you should always have the Greencard with you, but always reserve it a little place in your mind. From now on there are so many things that can only be decided with the Greencard in mind! For example “should I apply for a new job before moving?” or “should I buy something expensive before moving?”!

2. Always be prepared for questions!
You definitely should be aware that at every public event you attend, at every party where you meet new people or at every dinner with someone you haven’t seen for a long time people will ask you about how that whole Greencard thing works! Flo and I actually developed some kind of strategy for these moments. We both know our parts of it by heart and so everytime someone asks us about it we seem to be so confident and sure about it that people are impressed!

3. Say hello to nightmares!
Yes, nightmares and panic attacks will be part of your life from now on! Be prepared for dreams of you losing the Greencard, being stuck in the US with no life and no money or simply everything going wrong. Also those panic attacks leaving you puzzled if you are doing the right thing or if you just are the dumbest person in the world are NORMAL!

4. Do not be unapologetic!
This is your dream and no matter if people understand it, are envious or adjudge you – you are the only person who knows what’s right and what’s wrong for you!

You will need some time to learn how to stick up to the challenge of being a Greencard holder! But with every second that passes by, I love that feeling a little more! And I am so happy for you to be able to experience this feeling, too!

Sometimes I feel like Flo and I actually live the dream of someone else. Yes, we both always wanted to move to the US. Yes, we are more than overjoyed to get this opportunity. But no, we didn’t wait desperately to get this chance. The moment we read this mail telling us that Flo won the Greencard, kind of blew us over. As I already told you, Flo took part in the lottery for the first time and I never took part in it. So it wasn’t as if Flo and I waited for this chance for the last 20 years.

Yesterday we met a guy, that has been visiting the US up to three times a year for the last 20 years and took part in the lottery ten times more than we did. This guy already is half American and would move right now, if he got the chance, too. He actually thinks about trying to get a Visa on another way and I guess would fit in the US better than any American.

Seeing this sometimes makes me feel bad, because the Greencard kind of come to us via fate and not via hard work. We didn’t pray for this for the last 20 years. We didn’t cry over negative notifications for the last years. And we didn’t leave the US after a holiday with the desperate urge of just running back.

I somehow believe in fate and know that this chance is a chance we just HAVE to take und that we will make something good out of it. But it is a strange feeling to know that there are people out there that want this chance so badly! If I could, I would give those people a tiny part of my Greencard to live their dream as well. But I can’t. So I feel like I have to make this chance – at least to not be a burglar of someone elses dream!