My passport revives after 5 bloody years!

The big day has come for me.. the big day to celebrate the renaisance of my passport. I open the drawer and bring out the burgundy colored, little passport with golden letters engraved on it : Isalmic Republic of Iran. It's dusty and empty at the same time. Dusty as it has been retired for 5 consecutive years, since the time my snickers touched the soil of United States of America on 26th december 1999 till now. The pages are empty and blank, no visa, nada. I go over the pages, nothing written in them but are they really empty? On each page I've written a million words of sighs, tears and feelings by turning the pages all these years and wishing that I could use this passport, that I could go to all those unknown places that my heart craves for, that I could go back home for Norooz and spend a proper Eid with my parents afterall in my brain the time has stopped in 1378, the last real sal tahvil of my life .. well, so far . See, I'm hopeful!

Today my passport and I traveled to Consulate General de Peru in Los Anegels. A very simple office, small with I guess less than 10 employees in total(at least as far as I saw). They were friendly, very friendly and liked the fact that I could hablar espanol. They willingly repeated their sentences for me instead of trying to speak English which made me feel real good. Well , it was my first encounter in an " OFFICIAL CAPACITY " with the Lationamericanos!

My work permit expiring in less than 2 weeks after my return date on the itinerary made them raise their eyebrows and made me look out of the window and think: Even for travelling to Peru,where needs tourism for capital buget reasons , I have to hold my breath. Will ever this game end? Will the golden letters on that burgundi give me more self confidence sometime down the road?

My pals give me hope: Oh, you can apply for the green passport after you become a citizen. They give it to you in a year.And when will that be from now , 7-8 or 9 years from now? And we're talking years not weeks or even months and we're talking about a 30 years old girl not a new born baby .. yeah, that makes a difference . I certainly do not hope to see amazon river on crouches!

Anyhow, in less than 2 hours , I have a Peru visa valid for 15 days in my little passport.When we leave, my passport feels more important. I hear its heartbeat in my sweaty hands pressing it so hard.

And my heart , it beats faster for sure but not as fast as it should've. Why? Why? Because the game is not complete bacuse my other half is not there yet. Because I still have to check USIC site 3 times a day and each time hope for the final message, beacuse the processing time promise of 90 days has gone on for 8 months now without any reason , beacuse an INS officer made a mistake on stamping his I-94 when entering US , because the INS officers are protected by law against their mistakes and the innocent person like my buddy and I should suffer the consequences of their not knowing their job, irresponsibility or whatever you want call it , do you want any more reasons?