Truly between two lands

The most common thing I hear these days is, “Maybe you should go back to Buenos Aires instead of Italy.  It sounds like that’s where you really want to be.  I can tell it hurts you not to be there. You miss it.”  Yyyyyeah.  I do.  A lot.  It’s my home and my true love.  I miss my Buenos Aires family and many other things there.  I’m not depressed anymore or culture shocked, though.  I’m happy.  But there is a dull ache in my heart that lingers… and every day something makes me feel like I am there.  When I realize I’m not, I shed a small tear.  I really, really love that city so much, with all of my heart.  I don’t think I knew what love was until I fell for Buenos Aires.  This is hard core love.  It’s amazing.  My heart is dripping with it.

That’s not to say I don’t love Italy. Oh man how I love it.  Italy is so important to me.  It’s my country, my soul’s birthplace, and my favorite place in the world to eat.  It’s… at the root of who I am.   Gosh, I really am a tanguera between two lands!  But man, oh man this love I feel for Argentina is just so consuming.

So Tina, you say, why go on like this when you can just go back to Argentina?

The answer, for me, is not a simple one.  I’m not sure I even have the answer.  All I know is that I don’t like being clandestine.  Migraciones recently changed a lot of rules and even threw out a whole visa program.  There is nothing for me in terms of staying legally – and I don’t plan on getting a study visa, because I like – actually, LOVE – my career and don’t want to go back to school again.  Considering my own situation, the only way for me to live in Argentina permanently, and legally, is to get married to an Argentine or give birth to one.  While it would bring me great joy to share my life with someone and give birth to a child, I do not want to run around trying to find a husband in my first 90 days there.

The only option is to hop the border every 90 days, which is basically what I did before.  Staying and “extending” your tourist visa now costs 300 pesos – yikes!   And with the way the immigration laws are changing down there, I’m not sure how long it will be possible to do that.  I know a lot of people do hop the border and have no problem with it, but not all of them like it – some of them are battling with the bureaucrats, trying to get their residency, etc., and… well, Buenos Aires is their home.   I would hate to see this law change on them.

I have never really liked doing it, the whole border-hopping thing.  I’m in my early thirties and want to think seriously about putting roots down, in the sense of really living in a place and having an identity and a bank account.   Paying taxes.   Really being a resident.   Making myself available for local opportunities and maybe even long-term love.  I’m ready to set up shop in one place and not have to leave.  Oh, how I would love to be able to do that in Argentina!

I CAN do that in Italy.  I have my Italian citizenship now.  I’m Italian, and it feels good to say it.  Just about as good as finding the perfect pair of Comme il Fauts that fit me like a glove.  This Italian passport is a jewel to me, a treasure.  I look at it in my hand and smile.  I worked hard for it.  You’re probably sick of me saying it, but I’ll say it: I have the legal right to live in the most beautiful place on earth with the best food on earth.  It’s pretty cool.

I’ve also already said this before, but since my work mostly comes from Italy, and sometimes the rest of Europe, I’m excited at the prospect of being in the same time zone as my clients.  And maybe doing the same work but through a different medium than just my laptop.  Who knows.  Europe is my oyster.

I have this fantasy of getting myself set up in Italy, and then coming to Argentina for three months out of the year.  Or maybe three months in one place, then the other, and so forth… Either way, that would bring me so much joy.  To be able to love and laugh in both of my favorite countries. I’d have to work hard, like really hard, to get the money together do it, but it would be worth it.  Anything to be able to guarantee that I’ll still get to at least sometimes play with Isabella and Tobias, taste wine with Joli and Pelado, laugh with Ruben and Cherie on their terrace, walk those streets that whisper so many names and stories, embrace those milongueros who make me feel so protected I wouldn’t notice a hurricane passing through.

March and April were a sort of death for me.  The end of an era.  Now it’s time for my rebirth.  My Renaissance.  Hence, the image in this post of the Birth of Venus, by Botticelli.  My Venus, dripping heart and all, is ready to come back out of her shell.