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stella41b -> RE: RELOCATING IMPLICATIONS (11/27/2007 5:33:52 PM)
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I'll come in on this, as I've had experience, and wish to make the following points.
I guess from a North American perspective relocating within the European Union may appear easy, but it isn't. Going from Sweden to Italy, for example isn't quite the same as moving from Wyoming to North Carolina - these are states, and in the European Union they are countries in their own right.
The only thing that's uniform in the European Union is that you have the right to relocate, settle and seek employment as a citizen of that country, but with restrictions - you usually only receive the most essential healthcare for the first six months, cannot claim any welfare for a period of up to two years, and you need to have been resident usually for two years and registered as a resident before you can even hope to take on the rights of a citizen of that country.
This just isn't about employment, income, and so on, there's a whole lot of different other issues which you need to take into account. In the European Union as it stands to today you have at least five different common mentalities and cultures, all different - you have the Nordic/Scandinavian mentality of the north, a different mentality and culture of western countries, the Southern European mentality and culture shared by Spani, Italy, Greece, Slovenia, the Eastern European mentality and culture of Bulgaria, Romania, and the Central European mentality and culture of Germany, Poland, Austria and the Czech Republic, for example. You can add a sixth 'island' mentality and culture of Great Britain and Ireland, Malta. But then again, Holland and Belgium do not share the same culture, there are similarities, but they cannot be the same, nor can Scotland and England. Northern Ireland is completely different from the Republic of Ireland. Poland is very much Eastern European but also Central European, Romania is also Eastern European, but also Southern European. Each country is to be taken individually.
Each country has its own culture, traditions, history, language, society, legislation, ideology, and even its own cost of living. A bottle of decent red wine which may cost you $20 in Britain may cost you $3 in France, $1 in Spain, $5 in the Czech Republic, and as much as $40 in Sweden.
This is not just about employment, financial aspects and getting an income. It's not only about immigration, which is the single most determining factor which decides whether you have a relationship or not in reality. In my opinion only an idiot would relocate to a foreign country without checking the immigration requirements. I know, I've been illegal myself in Poland in former times, in Russia, I've once missed deportation by a period of 12 hours. In Russia the problem was solved by a bottle of good Scotch whisky which I wasn't sure of getting until the last minute. Try to offer a US or UK official something similar and you're hung, you're as good as in those handcuffs and on the plane back. There are certain countries I cannot relocate to. Australia is one. There's a quota system and there's no way possible for me to get a visa to settle in Australia. The United States requires marriage, there is no other way.
I'm working on relocation to my Mistress in Canada, or rather, Quebec. No problems with the employment, I'm a recognised playwright and stage director, I run theatre workshops, I am also a qualified TEFL English as a Foreign Language teacher, I can verify my artistic work through articles, newspaper reviews, videos, and references. I am therefore for the sake of immigration to either Canada or Quebec visa exempt. I don't need a visa. I have family in Toronto.
This isn't what is holding things up, and what is going to delay this relocation and make it a long term process. I'm a TS female, I'm mid to late transition, on hormones, in the latter stages of my gender reassignment. Unlike most people who can seek and find employment I am self-employed and my income comes from ticket sales or participation fees, royalties, ticket sales - the traditional 'bums on seats' - or from funding. This is the hard part, the business side, getting the resources and funding. Writing plays and directing them and running workshops is easy by comparison. I do a lot of other minor, menial jobs, I write articles freelance, I translate, I teach English, and I even work as a domestic cleaner. I do ironing for women who haven't got a clue who I really am. I cannot enter the employment market until after surgery, because any potential employer just sees three months of paid salary for sick leave coming up in the future and even if they wanted to handle the social stigma of employing a TS female they certainly don't want an employee who is going to be off sick for up to three months in the foreseeable future. Therefore I'm unemployable and disqualified from the employment market.
Gender reassignment is one thing, in the New Year it will have been ten years since I first started this process which has been complicated, difficult, stop start and stressful at times the whole way through. I'm doing something in Britain known as the Real Life Test, 2 years minimum of living 24/7 as a female and being able to show documented proof of doing so - photos, bank statements, work records, etc. This is my second time round, I did something similar in Poland. I would hate to arrive in Canada and have to go through the same process all over again. Especially as it's going to take me at least 2-3 years to assimilate into Canadian society.
And this is the key word - assimilation - that process which is far more important than the employment or financial aspects, the income, and having a relationship. Assimilation is hard enough within a country, especially a country like the United States where you go say from Florida in the South to Illinois in the North. It's even harder when you're doing it internationally. This is the period when you leave your former life, your friends, your family, your lifestyle, your hobbies, even most of your possessions, your home, and emotionally sometimes even your roots and background, and you take a great leap into the unknown. You live with nothing, absolutely nothing, everything belongs to someone else, and you have to start your life all over again. But you're starting your life all over again in a place you've probably never even been to before, it's all new, different, unfamiliar, strange.
Even more so when you don't share the same language as your partner. My Mistress is French Canadian, English is her second language, she speaks it really well, fluently, but there's always something lost in translation. I'm studying French again hard, but even this isn't an ideal solution. In my last relationship in Poland I was speaking Polish as my former Mistress was Polish. I'm considered bilingual, I can speak and write the language fluently like a Pole, I've written work in Polish and directed it in Polish for Polish audiences, and everything would be fine but I'm not Polish, I don't share that mentality, and when talking about things like feelings or even explaining BDSM concepts I struggle and something gets lost in my words. I know that there's going to be many times with my Mistress where she'll be sitting with her friends, and they'll be talking and laughing in French, and I won't understand why. I may see her get angry and not have a clue what is causing her anger.
Be prepared to be lonely, to be isolated, not to understand properly what is going on around you, to misunderstand and misinterpret people. Be prepared to be depressed, to feel homesick. Be prepared for the stress and the pressure which is going to come into your relationship, testing it, straining it, putting it through unimaginable difficult situations. Be prepared for arguments, misunderstandings, conflicts, be prepared to make allowances and to give people a margin for error.
Be prepared to be thrown at any possible moment, to go through a day never knowing how it is going to work out, of having your plans fall apart, often for reasons you cannot quite understand. This isn't just the odd day, it's most days, in fact sometimes it's every day, day in, day out, and you have to deal with that stress and hassle. This isn't just the first few days, the first few months - they're easy, enjoy them while you can. We're talking months here, even years.
You've also got to ask yourself some pretty difficult and searching questions. Is it really the relationship that's so special? Or is it your perception of that relationship? And that new life? Is it really going to be better than the life you have now? How do you know? How can you be sure?
Are you relocating for the right reasons? Put the relationship to one side for a minute, because you can find a relationship anywhere you want to if you really stop and think about it. I don't subscribe to the 'One' theory, or the 'soulmate' theory. Some people understand you better than others, some people don't understand you at all. Nobody is ever born for each other, even though it's romantic to think so and all lovey dovey, but the bottom line is people have successful relationships because they can accept each other, find some level of understanding with each other, and also.. most importantly.. put up with each other. This is my only criteria for a relationship, if you can accept me for me, understand me to a deep enough degree, and feel confident that I'm not going to piss you off or drive you insane then yes, I'm all your's. I take you at face value, I get to know you, and I keep on getting to know you as long as the relationship lasts. I guess I'm pretty simplistic when it comes to relationships, but behind all the romantic bullshit and lovey dovey flowery language this is the way I actually think.
It's so easy to deceive yourself, and to deceive others through your own self-deceit, and not even have a clue you're doing it. This is especially true in BDSM, when you have all the imagery, the rituals, the culture and the subculture, and it's especially important if your other half is a Mistress. You know, I've spent a lot of my adult life serving Dommes, and when I look at the profiles of the various Dommes in their boots and corsets, holding the crops and whips and trying ever so hard to look dominant I don't see that, I see through that. It looks nice on the photos but it's not much more I guess than a small part of the relationship. Mistresses don't have it easy, they're going against popular social attitudes, they get objectified, fetishized, seen as little more than Cruella type personas by many, and few are prepared to acknowledge or even understand that it isn't an easy life. I'm not making any reference to the OP here or commenting on the relationship, but this is the way I see it generally. I'm not saying male Doms have it any easier, they should as it's more in line with 'modern socially acceptable thinking' but there's the Internet and as we all know the Internet attracts idiots like a sugary doughnut attracts wasps on a summer's day. Dommes don't have it easy, it's rarely if ever a sexual thing, it's more emotional and psychological and you need to be able to handle the weak, vulnerable side of her and find her as a woman even before you can even dream of finding the Mistress in her. Quite often it's that weak vulnerable side which makes her dominant and if you don't understand that side you can very quickly end up in hot water. Better the Devil you know.
You also need to ask yourself, and give yourself an honest answer, whether you are running away from something or escaping from something. You see the funny thing is that life has a nasty habit of shoving the things you are escaping and running away from back in your face without any warning. When you relocate, like it or not, your problems and issues go with you - all of them. And they crop up when you least expect it, and not only, they also can really screw up that new life and even destroy it. What then? Do you have a contigency plan? Do you have a Plan B? What if it doesn't work out? I'm writing here as someone who did run away and who refused to face up to issues. I'm also writing as someone who has lived through the consequences of having it all come back on me, of complete and total social rejection. My days in Poland ended finding me as a rather fat, unconvincing TS female, destitute, homeless in Warsaw during a bitterly cold November with snow on the streets, temperatures of minus fifteen, not eating for days, being attacked in a public toilet by four large dark-skinned immigrant males and a supermarket security guard (and managing to defend myself and get away), relying only on the kindness of passers-by, and a four day journey hitchhiking across Europe back to the UK with frostbitten feet and lots of walking. Just as an example.
That's the negatives... there's also the positives. I'm chasing the dream, and I admit it. I am in an all or nothing situation in life, and I've decided I want it all.. I got a birth certificate which still says male on it, and I'm looking to transcend my gender to be with my Mistress as her alpha female slave, but not only, I'm also looking to rebuild my whole life completely and restore it to what it was in the year 2001 - in a successful relationship with a Domme, successful in my career in theatre, working, self-employed, living in an apartment, socially accepted, popular, known, living abroad - I function better as a foreigner - and have the ambition to continue my career in theatre, which started as a male - only this time I'm doing it as myself, i.e. female to be one of the very few people in theatre to have found success in both genders.
Quite a few people think I'm mad, insane, deluded, I got friends advising caution, my family also advising the same but accepting of my decisions. But I haven't got any illusions. I know the odds are stacked against me at this moment in time, I know it's going to be extremely difficult, I know it's going to take a long time, and require a lot from me. But this is me, this is what I do, I live a very dedicated, frugal, individual lifestyle, the lifestyle of the missionary, I consider myself not 'lifestyle BDSM' but 'lifestyle submissive', I know I function best when I'm helping people and serving them, when I'm sharing my talents and my creativity and using these talents and skills for the benefit of other people. This is what my whole life is about.
I'm taking my time and taking it one day at a time. If it screws up it screws up. It takes a second to have an idea, a single moment, and I can have lots of them. But... I'm also following the voice of my Soul and the path it leads me through life. These aren't great expectations. Success in theatre for me is a gathering of not even a hundred people in the same space, any space to watch a theatrical performance. I'm in my 40's, this is the only time I'm ever going to get to do this in my life. One time, and as much as possible I've got to get it right. At the moment I'm finding out all I can about Canada, the people, the society, the culture, and taking this step by step.
This is the only thing that works in your favour when you relocate, just as in life - listening to that inner voice of your Soul, learning to take heed of its warnings, to be true to yourself and to other people, to say what you feel and think and not what you think the other person wants you to say, and to trust your judgment.
When I work with actors in the theatre, who are usually untrained, non-professional, one of the first things I teach them is 'don't think but do'. I've stolen this from the basic RAF training 'don't think' - trust your judgment and your instincts. Usually when you screw up you will probably find that you've stopped, done some thinking, and gone against your better instinctive judgment.
It's that 'inner voice', that instinct, that gut feeling which is the single most important factor when relocating.
I conclude with a Shakespeare quotation - "There is nothing good or bad in this world, only thinking makes it so."
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