Expat Paperwork Fallout
Let’s imagine that I’m sitting at my dining room table, and my global psychiatrist is on the screen in front of me. She’s asking, gently, if my paperwork problem affects people close to me, such as my children.
As I stare into the distance with a thoughtful look on my face, the image inside your imagination ripples and blurs because I am recalling a recent scene.
Our family drove into the city for a fun holiday activity. The plan was to park in our favorite garage, play for a while at the most famous park in Madrid, and then pick up a Roscon de Reyes–the traditional Epiphany cake–for the next day. We were all a little on edge after a long winter break with no routine. Our residency documents have been awaiting approval for four months, and my husband was feeling the pressure. I offhandedly mentioned something related to the virus that is wreaking havoc on everything, and my husband went on a little rant about all the ways our future would potentially be impacted. His imagination went wild and he said, “if we don’t get our residency cards on time, we might have to delay our home assignment.”
Instead of saying what I should have said, which is, “well, let’s cross that bridge when we get to it in a few months,” I totally freaked out. I’m ashamed to admit I cried and yelled a bit about how everyone else seemed to have no trouble “going home” during a global pandemic but we can’t even do a required home assignment. Ah, comparison: never invited but ever present, am I right? Delaying home assignment had not occurred to me, and so I was unreasonably angry at my husband for even suggesting it. We have to take a home assignment after all. It’s literally a requirement of our passport country.
In the end, we sat in the car in the parking garage, apologizing to our kids, who were hysterical with the prospect of not seeing their grandparents on home assignment, for letting our imaginations, and the stress of paperwork get the best of us. Realistically, while delaying home assignment is not outside the entire realm of possibility, it’s an unlikely scenario we don’t have to face unless our residency cards don’t arrive in the next few months.
It was embarrassing. It caused us to fight. It hurt our kids.
As the rippling scene brings us back to reality, ask yourself: do we sound like people in need of an intervention, or what?
My name is Rose, and I am experiencing Expat Paperwork Fallout.
Managing visas, passport renewals, residency requirements, totalization, salary documentation, foreign taxes, fees, travel procedures, and pandemic restrictions is a full time job, but we already have a full time job so we have to do paperwork like it’s the world’s most life-sucking hobby. For example, the other day we spent 36 minutes hunting for the clean print heads option on our printer because the color copies of our passport pages were printing only in blue and then only in red. Some paperwork expenses cannot be quantified.
My husband and I have conversations like Pinky and the Brain:
Me: What should we do tonight?
Husband: The same thing we do every night.
Me: Watch Downton Abbey?
Husband: No, try to stay in our host country legally!
But I think I need a perspective change on the impact of paperwork in my international life. It’s never going away, and it will probably always be complicated. I need, and perhaps you do too, a basic recovery program for dealing with the emotions paperwork dredges up.
Every recovery program is based on six principles, and I’ve applied them here to our problem with international paperwork.
Admit the problem: I can’t control the paperwork situation. Documents will have to be filed, redundant forms must be filled out.
Seek a higher power: Only God can give us the strength to complete the task, whether it is a residency application or a child’s medical form, because God is in control of whether or not we stay in our host country.
Examine past mistakes with the help of an experienced friend: After examining our response to the stress of paperwork, we will seek the help of experienced expats when facing paperwork obstacles.
Make amends: I’m sorry for what I said when we had paperwork.
Learn to live a new life: I promise to accept that paperwork is a fact of expat life, and I promise to control my emotions and think only about the actual situation, not the potential one. My friend Lisa likes to remind me, “God gives us grace for our actual circumstances, not our imagined ones.”
Help others: Finally, when another expat complains or struggles, I will offer what help, advice and encouragement I can.
Tell us your worst paperwork story! Could you use a recovery program to deal with Expat Paperwork Fallout?
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