| | Just as I noticed all 24 pages of my passport were plastered with stamps of entry, exit, re-entry, I also noted it was nearly expired.
Ten years. For 10 years this blue-jacketed booklet has accompanied me on my travels... or more accurately been my permission to exist in another country. Ah, my first trip to Germany with the Deutsch Klub; 17 years old and a future to sculpt. Memories (or lack thereof?) thanks to alcohol ueber-consumption couldn't tarnish the love at first sight. Like my intrigue for travel, my passport stuck with me. Eventually my foreign work visas, allowing me residency, got wallpapered in the back. For the past two years, border guards had eyed me, as if I weren't the long-haired lass smiling on the front page. I guess I wasn't anymore, so I don't blame them.
It's vintage-- back when pass photos were black & white and sans embedded computer chip. What an oddly heartwrenching deed it was to package and express mail it to the U.S. Department of State for renewal. I've felt naked these past three weeks without it.
But today the official envelope arrived.
Now I've got a Homeland-Security-Approved booklet, featuring a new four-color photo and electronic identity chip, fully loaded with quotes from our Forefathers and bald eagles in flight. I secretly wonder if the electronic chip is linked into a GPS system, or bugged for our safety to monitor our patriotic tendencies.
Regardless, they were kind enough to return the old booklet with two holes jabbed through the front, and an "INVALID" stamp across my signature. Ah, another building block for the scrapbook-to-be. As I sign my old name in new ink, I wonder where the next decade will lead...27 years old and a future to sculpt.
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| | Posted 4/7/2008 8:44 PM - 53 views - 5 comments
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