Gratus

I have spent the last 18 years getting to know this country.

The good, the great, the really ugly.

I have loved her, and I have criticized her.

I have longed for her, dreamed of her , and even cast her to the side.

She’s my second home and I still pine for my first.

A little over a week ago, I naturalized, and it finally happened.

A US Citizen.

18 years later, the whole thing feels cathartic.

There’s no profound joy, but there is an immense amount of gratitude.

A gratus I didn't quite expect.

18 years: judgments, criticisms, evaluating all the potential, what we could do, what we have done, what we could’ve been.

Over the last 11 days, all I have felt is gratitude.

Grateful that I have vaccine access when my European contemporaries are just now breathing a sigh of relief.

Grateful I am not Haitian

Grateful I am not a mother in Indonesia

Grateful I am not a woman in Afghanistan

Grateful I am not a dissident of Belarus

Grateful I am not Hungarian

Grateful I don’t own any Lebanese Lira

Grateful

Grateful to be Nigerian

Grateful to be proudly and imperfectly American

Just happy to be alive and well.