I’m officially a Polish citizen

I feel weird recently. Weirdly assimilated.

My blog has always been about my daily struggles in Poland. Things I don’t understand. Things I understand but I can’t accept. Things I think are ridiculous or just plain bizarre. Nowadays, I still feel those differences, but it’s not so extreme anymore. It’s not so much me vs them like it always felt. Now I am one of them.

How I feel being a Polish citizen

I picked up my first dowód osobisty last week and it’s such a relief. No more karta pobytu struggles! No more Urząd Wojewódzki! The thought that I probably never have to go there again is SO good. If you’ve ever had to deal with it, you know exactly how I feel. No more people looking at my karta pobytu and struggling to find my birth date or PESEL. No more cops showing up at my house asking me questions about my mental health. Finally!

That’s not to say there aren’t still mini struggles. Sometimes I still have doubts when speaking Polish and make loads of mistakes obviously, but not in the way I used to. Sometimes I just can’t say exactly what I want in a nice way, but mostly I can manage perfectly fine stress-free. Sometimes I have my husband call a doctor to describe some issues if it’s a subject area I’ve never navigated before. But mostly I just go about things on a daily basis without thinking 10 steps ahead. What’s interesting is recently I needed to make a call in English and that actually stressed me because I haven’t done it in so long. I was actually thinking about what I would say before making the call. That’s effing weird.

I think after nearly 11 years, 2 kids, a house, a business, learning a language, I actually feel kinda assimilated? How is that possible? Things just feel normal. It seems like there’s not much left to go through here that I haven’t experienced.

Why did I want to become a Polish citizen?

One of my neighbors couldn’t believe that it was important to me to become a citizen. A citizen of Poland? What for? People are so quick to rag on Poland (particularly if they’re Polish), but what they don’t realize is just how important it is to me. I actually cried when I got the decision in the mail. I’ve made my life here and to me it just felt like the natural kind of last step in the process of putting down roots. If you choose to live in a place, and you know you’re going to stay there, doesn’t it make your life easier to be a citizen? Especially nowadays when you could have travel/border issues. And not only because of the bureaucracy, but somehow in my head it makes me feel calmer. Like I don’t have to worry something is going to happen and I’ll be treated like less. Now I just have explain why I don’t speak Polish perfectly even though I’m a citizen ?

So what are the other benefits of being a Polish citizen?

1. I can vote. I’ve always wanted to be able to vote here. I mean if you live in a place, pay taxes, etc. it seems like you should be able to have some say matters that go on there.
2. I don’t have to deal with getting a karta pobytu ever again in my life. No other comment necessary.
3. I don’t have to get permission to buy land in Poland. I had an issue with this previously, and it’s not something I want to deal with again.
4. Bragging rights. Maybe it sounds ridiculous but I mean it is cool in my opinion!

Now I just have to work on my passport (no more non-EU line at the airport woop!) and that’ll be it! I’m traveling to Florida in January, so it seems like it could be useful to have. At least I won’t have to worry.

Next step? Live like a normal person in Poland ? Or at least try.