My Journey to Dual Citizenship
- Melanie
- Dec 30, 2022
- 6 min read
A passion for travel which started with watching movies has led to me gaining a dual citizenship in a country halfway across the world. Here’s how it all began.
By Melanie
My passion for travel was organic and natural, it just popped into my mind and world one day out of the blue and I never lost sight of it. If memory serves me correctly, my cousins and I were watching “The Sisterhood of The Traveling Pants” in the family room and it was the first time I looked at Greece. In the movie, one of the main characters goes to Greece for the summer and her whole life changed. I registered Greece as a place I wanted to go - I just didn't know how to, yet.
At the time, I had no life experience to know it, , but I could feel from the storytelling and movies that travel changes your life. I was obsessed.
I didn't grow up around other travelers and I especially didn't know people who traveled solo. Now, as an adult, it always surprises me when I meet teenagers backpacking on their own, because I'm like 'How did you get here? How did you know this existed?!' Maybe the internet and social media play a bigger role these days in showing us life beyond our hometown, but some of us are wired differently.
Some people dream of owning a house, starting a family, getting a promotion, or owning a designer bag. For me, all I ever wanted was to have enough to go where ever, whenever, and for however long I wished. I never thought the traditional 9-5 was in me, but I also didn't know there was another road map to follow.
Raised in Atlanta, GA as a kid; I was exposed to city living, people from different backgrounds and lifestyles, and the luxury that 'there's always something going on' there, my life was far from sheltered. And when I went off to college, unlike some, I wasn't from a bubble but as I grew up I was becoming more and more curious about what people were like beyond where I was from. While Atlanta is a nice city, it never felt like home to me, at least not my only home.
Travel for me started with trips to the Florida coast with my family and stretched across the South East of the USA. As I grew up, road trips and plane trips with friends began. I took my first solo trip to Canada when I was 23.
I had a friend from secondary school who had American and Canadian citizenship from her parents. She was the first dual citizen I knew and I thought it was so cool she could live in either part of North America. I googled how to become a dual citizen but I didn't check the 'basic boxes' - neither my parents or grandparents are from elsewhere to be able to claim citizenship.
But there are other ways to claim dual citizenship, depending on the country you are interested in or what kind of Visa you could be eligible for depending on study or work permissions.
I finished university with a degree in education, a passport, and stacks of paperwork and portfolios more detailed than a Colleen Hoover book and decided I was going to immigrate to Ireland.
I’d visited Ireland twice before I decided to move there at 24. I used to watch movies or listen to stories about Ireland and I felt drawn there, I didn't know just how connected to the country I'd actually become.
I left the States for Ireland for a holiday and my entire life changed.
The air is so different in Ireland, the food, the entire look of the place - nothing in my life would ever quite feel or taste the same. The first time I visited Ireland for 3 weeks and liked it so much that I went back for 2 months; the rest is history.
I started making friends, I learned my way around, and most of all I was meeting people who'd grown up moving, traveling, exploring the world, and living the kind of different that seemed perfect and natural to me. Ireland would be my hub, my chosen home, the place where I would start a new life. I was adventurous sure, but also scared. I had to remind myself how far I'd already come.
I'm skipping over the ugly part of immigrating: the sleepless nights second guessing yourself, working extra hours to save more money before you leave, not having a job lined up before you quit the job you have, listening to people tell you it won't work out, having people ask you dozens of questions about why you want to do this and what your plans will be, re-sending documents that countries misunderstand from each other (despite speaking the same language), finding notaries and paying for each individual page, standing in queues over and over to get stamps, waiting, getting rejected from interviews, being new, not having connections yet, more waiting, and rallying blind faith daily. But it’s all worth it! Honest!
I can safely raise my hand and say I have understood the feeling of home and the connection to family all my life. As I've grown up, I've met people who became not just close friends but also my chosen family all around the world.
Where ever I go in the world, I am in my home. I have a feeling of family origin in Georgia and The States, but I could always feel pulled somewhere else too. When I first moved to Ireland something lit up in me that I had never felt before. James Joyce says it perfectly, 'When I die, Dublin will be written on my heart.' I felt a sense of home and belonging in a form I'd only ever dreamed of.
I could walk from place to place, use public transportation, start the day with a cup of tea, walk by old churches and buildings, pop into a pub after work and listen to trad music or just meet friends.I could be in Ireland on Friday afternoon and France by Friday evening with a short haul flight. I got to swim in the sea or hike in the mountains, soak up delicious fish n chips, join in a sing-song, and so many more simple and little things that form one huge thing- HOME. Ireland is my chosen home.
I’ve lived there, taught in the schools, swam in the sea, studied Gaelic, cycled the hills, climbed the mountains, kissed the rain, learned the history, cried, laughed, and felt deep joy living there. When I'm not in The States I miss family and friends, but when I'm not in Ireland I miss the hill behind my village, the coast roads I know by heart, the friends and family I formed there after staying 10+ years. Oscar Wilde said, “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
When I earned my second passport, I jokingly called it my first marriage.
I had wanted Ireland and The European Union to be my forever home and forever relationship. The ability to come and go from The US and Europe is something I am so thankful for and indescribably proud of. I spent my childhood in America feeling half home, but then matured into my adult life in Ireland and Europe feel whole. I feel like both nationalities and both cultures have influenced me as a person and enabled me to shape the life I want.
There's a connection I have to The States and my people there that I could have nowhere else because it's where I'm from. But the connection that I have to Ireland, Europe, and the world I share with everyone I come into contact with because it's who I am.
My passports are the keys to the other parts of my heart - enabling me to be home where ever I am. I am my own home.
About Melanie
Melanie is a digital nomad exploring the field of UX design while backpacking through South America. She can be found with a 70L Osprey bag stuffed creatively with supplies, for mostly summer weather, but the just in-case cold weather gear close by and that's her house these days.
After the pandemic and lockdowns lifted in Europe, she sold/donated/put things into storage and went traveling. She is a dual citizen of USA and Ireland; has visited 50 countries and lived in 5.
Before transforming into the digital nomad lifestyle, Melanie worked as a primary school teacher in both The States and Ireland. Melanie is passionate about inclusivity and advocacy for people with special needs.
When not in the classroom Melanie has worked as an educational consultant for recently qualified teachers, and a sports coach for children within the Special Olympics program learning to swim and use a bicycle. She's swam in cold water seas throughout Ireland and The UK, competed in long-distance open water swimming competitions internationally, cycled across Europe on a push bike, free-dived in The Caribbean, hiked Mount Olympus and recently completed her PADI course.
She is a lifelong learner, athlete, and adventure seeker. Melanie loves to swim, cycle, camp, and study languages. She is currently based in Colombia with Patagonia trekking next on her bucket list.
