Passport

My passport got picked up by a courier yesterday to be taken away and replaced with my new passport in about a month. There's a little part of my brain that is constantly aware of this and not happy about it. I occasionally hear friends talk about not having seen theirs in years and I marvel at this: I could always tell you exactly where mine is. When people ask you what you'd run to get out of your house in case of a fire (note: I know this is different than there actually being a fire, when it's most likely you'll run outside without anything), I always say my passport. It's a surprising answer I think, so prosaic and boring.

Of course I know intellectually that my friends can lose or forget about their passports for years and it's at most an inconvenience the next time they think about a holiday or a work trip abroad. But I didn't get a passport until I came to visit Andrew, and ever since it's been necessary to my well-being. First as what I needed to be with the person I loved, and now as what I need to see anyone I'm related to, anyone who's known me loner than a dozen years.

Without my passport, I don't quite feel like me.

It's not just my standard form of ID, since I can't drive. It's also the only proof I was given of my Indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK. It's what I have to show to prove I can work here, to access benefits and public services. I have scans of what airports call "the picture page" of my passport for ID, but I also have scans of the ILR page for access: it's like a tiny little bit of a UK passport that entitles me to almost everything a UK citizen gets while they're in the UK.

Should I get as far as a job interview before my passport comes back, there will have to be explanation and faff; it'll make me worry that I seem more difficult to employ than someone for whom they don't have to worry about immigration status. If my parents suddenly get sick or someone in my family dies, I'd be desperate to fly back and terrifyingly unsure of how to (this is not the time to give me the details on this; I'm sure there's a procedure and I could figure something out if I had to, and yes I know it's unlikely, but when you've already got an anxiety disorder anyway this kind of thing is meat and drink to it, and mine's gorging on this right now).

There are good reasons I don't often think about how so much of my life depends on such slim threads as this passport.

Depression is SO FUCKING EXHAUSTING!

By 12:30 this afternoon, I had...

• gotten out of bed very early (around eight), feeling relatively rested (though my "relative" baselne here is not good right now)
• did laundry and hung it outside (hooray for sunshine!)
• walked the dog
• remembered to take my meds
• took recycling out, took bins out, and put them back when they were empty
• wrote a little version of my "migrant story" for this website
• texted a friend to make plans to get together this week
• ordered a massive, overdue online grocery shop, which will be here tomorrow afternoon
• typed up my shitty longhand notes from the LGBT+ Lib Dems conference I was at recently and sent them off
• went with Andrew to a GP appointment
• ordered new prescriptions for Andrew and I before we've even run out of the existing ones (though it'll be close, for me!)
• ate reasonably well/appropriately

And yet I feel like I've done nothing, everything is overwhelming and crushing me.

Always a good go-to if you don't know an answer, anyway...

"Hang on a second," I said, starting up the stairs just when Andrew was nearly ready to go out. "I need to get some different shoes."

Trying to catch possible comments before they might happen, I said "I know you only have one pair of shoes because you have one pair of feet, but I can't do that."

"I know you do!" he said, rightly a little defensive at my pre-emptive unfairness. "I don't get it but I don't get a lot of things."

"And do you know why I can't have only one pair of shoes like you do?" I called down from the bedroom where I was buckling pointless but cute little buckles on my sandals.

There was a long pause.

I'd taught Andrew that women have to choose between comfort/suitability and acceptable appearance a lot more in our clothing than men do. I've never had one of those jobs where they mandated high heels, but I've certainly had criticisms for insufficiently-"professional" footwear even at temo jobs (where I couldn't afford new shoes!). Andrew's black brogues from Clarks are the overlap in the circles of functionality and approbation but for women in almost all of society, these two circles of the Venn diagram don't meet.

The pause got almost long enough that I was going to give the answer when two words floated up the stairs: "The patriarchy?"

"Yep!" I said, slapping my knees for dramatic effect as I stood up, feet newly sandaled and ready to take on the world. He got it exactly right; I'm so proud.