Dear friend, I’m so happy you wrote me and I’m glad everything is OK. I’m sure you will be home by Christmas with your family and your two little girls. I bet that day will be the happiest day of your life! Out here life is weird. I’ve been out for over a month now and I guess the “high” from “anything is better than jail” is wearing off and a wave of reality just hit me. I know nothing is worse then death, sickness or jail but still life is so darn hard at times. It feels like I just hit a dead end and I’m stuck; I don’t know what to do now. I called every attorney in San Diego and they all want a s**t lot of money just to tell me at the end that I have small chances of winning my case. And I do have savings but what’s the point of giving my life savings to some already rich lawyer just so I can end up getting sent to a 3rd world country, to a family that doesn’t like me much and with absolutely no money in my pocket. And I’m afraid of going back there. I don’t have anything there; I spent my whole adult life here! It will be so hard for me to get used to a country so small that it takes 2 hours to drive across the entire country and you need visas if you want to drive longer or I guess you can drive in circles or walk as it will be too expensive to drive anyway. It will be like living on an island, only there is no ocean around and it’s flat, cold and people are mean. And there are no human rights respected or freedom of speech. And I love to speak out my mind; I will probably end up in jail as soon as I step foot on my native land and open my month. No ocean, no mountains, I could bike in the summer only and you know how much I love exercise! I will be all claustrophobic, and my family will be all over my business. They will probably make me marry some guy that I don’t like and make babies; or I will have to live with my dad and I love him but still he is just a grumpy old man. And the economy is so bad; it will be really hard to find a job. There is no fast food restaurant that pays you 8$/hour; you get 8$ a week but the rent is pretty much the same price. I don’t know what to do? I thought of myself as the most positive person in the world and look at all these dark thoughts weeding my brain. I find myself at times taking extra long hot showers as I won’t have this luxury out there, no hot running water, and if I you are to leave the city, no running water at all. Don’t get me wrong, I still love my country but San Diego is my home and I will do everything possible to keep it this way! I know, so darn weepy, who is this girl? It seams like my only way to stay here is to marry somebody. My best friend said he would marry me but it looks like he is changing his mind and I hate pushing anybody to do something that they don’t really want. I could fall in love but I guess love is not meant for everybody. I already dated half of San Diego douche bags and no luck there. And I’m so over the whole dating thing. My friends thought I might be a lesbian and they took me to a gay night club. Nope, definitely not gay! Plus gay marriage doesn’t work in emigration cases anyway, my girlfriend said she will marry me and I did my research:). Should I be all a la “Heartbreakers” and convince somebody that I love him? How can I live in a lie for the next couple of years? What if I hate his guts and he pisses me off really bad, I still have to sleep with him! Why do I have to lie and break the law in order to accomplish such an honorable wish as to “become an American”? I don’t have a job yet. My old job said they would take me back but I don’t have a work permit, and according to San Diego Lawyers, emigration will make sure not to give me this permit anytime soon, and I’m afraid to use my social security number or I might get deported before I even blink. So I’ve been doing some freelance work that doesn’t pay and been looking for some under the table work. This crazy artist supposedly hired me as his assistant only so I can discover later that all he wants me to do are massages and sexual favors, and I’m not quite ready to cross on the other side. I’ve been looking on craigslist every day, read every single add, it’s scary. They want bachelor degrees for nanny and waitressing jobs. If Americans can’t find jobs, what about me, an emigrant without a work permit, I’m royally screwed! I find myself applying for housekeeping positions hoping that my hard work, great references from old jobs, computer knowledge, ability to speak 4 different languages, no drug abuse and/or criminal record would help me somehow to land a sweet cleaning bathrooms job. I can’t help but wonder how the Latinos find jobs after they cross the border? I’ve been trying to connect with a lot more Mexicans lately, maybe they can help me! Will let you know what I find out. I’m sad because there are so many Americans that don’t realize how much they have here. Especially in San Diego. This city is one of the most beautiful in the world. How can you be depressed when it is so amazingly gorgeous outside? And there are so many, exiting things to do! And I know that it’s hard economic times and that people lose their jobs and houses but this is the country of opportunity. The country their grandparents, probably emigrants just like me, worked so hard to build. Anybody can go back to school and study some more which is impossible in other countries if you don’t have the money. You can do anything here, you just have to want it and there are so many people that have the opportunity of doing absolutely anything they want and they don’t use it. They are just sitting there; existing on their couch; watching the latest reality TV show oblivious to what is going on outside their circle; because you know, “John and Kate”, Tila Tequila and Facebook’s Famville is so much more important then the wars and the starving kids all over the world. It breaks my heart knowing how many people want to be in this country and deserve it, but they can’t; or when I think about the girls that been here since they were 2 and they end up getting deported to the country they don’t even speak its language. This is their country as much as they are concerned, they don’t know any others!
I’m blessed to have my friends around me. I don’t know how I managed but I’m pretty sure that I have the coolest people of San Diego by my side. They help me with everything they can, morally and materially. They would listen to my hours of nonsense talking, will take me out for beers when I look like I’m about to punch somebody and will tell me the brutal truth when I need to hear it. It’s still hard sometimes and it’s all just because I was born somewhere else even though I’m more American then a lot. I wanted to be here since I was 4; I’m not a bad person; I’m a hard worker; I never brake the law; I’m intelligent and I always want to learn more. I just want a chance. I want my life back. I want to do the right thing. I want to go back to school, take a few more classes and be an engineer or programmer for some alternative energy company, that way I can make money while helping save the planet. Continue on my writing, maybe go to a few more poor/ unstable country and show the world what is really going on out there. I want to be a good person and help make the world a better place to live. I worked towards it for such a long time now and it seams that if I would be shipped back everything I worked for will be wasted away. But I will figure something out, I will find a way. Maybe I will try to immigrate to Mexico, if they accept me, and start all over again. I’m a smart girl, I already been to the bottom of the hole. I either have to start digging or climb out! For some weird reason I prefer the second;). You know how they say “if it doesn’t kill me, it just makes me stronger”. If you end up being sent to Samoa maybe I can come there too? At least it’s hot there! We can learn the language together? I wonder what’s the emigration like in Samoa?:) But that won’t happen, they will let us stay, there is no other way around it! Still on my quest to finding God, he is nowhere to be found so far! Will keep you posted. I keep my fingers crossed for you. Remember everything what’s happening is happening for better. I know this sentence is so cheese and how do we know what is going to happen but I still like it. Somebody wise once told me: “When something bad is happening that is just God pushing you around and telling you: hey, there is something else out there for you to do!” We went to jail for a reason and sooner or later we will find what that reason was, and it better be a good one! I hope some day our lives will be normal again and I will have the chance to see you and we will laugh about our crazy jail time. Can’t wait for your good news, K.:) P.S. I’ve been running around town with this guy, complete newbie to my world, he is just a friend. My roommate is really pissed about it. She thinks I should concentrate more on my emigration crap instead of making new friends. But sometimes I want to think about something else other then the fact that I might get deported. My head hurts half of the time because I think about it all the time and I can’t find a solution. He is extremely intelligent, probably the smartest guy I ever met and I’m a sucker for nerdy guys. He makes me laugh and when I’m with him is the only time I can relax a little. He doesn’t know anything about all this crap which is awesome, I can pretend that I’m normal and I have no worries; that I’m just me before jail. But now things changed and my life is upside down. Should I stop hanging out with him and keep concentrating on my unsolved problem that seams that doesn’t quite has a solution. Or do I just tell him: “Hey dude. I just got out of jail; I’ve been there for a month because I can’t lie and I told the wrong people that I’m not American. Oh boy, am I stupid! I don’t have a job or a work permit and I’m in a serious, hard core fight with the emigration law. I just got out of a back brace and I’m over 56 thousand dollars in medical bills because of an idiot that decided to hit me with his car. Oh, and I’m completely crazy too but according to Bukovsky crazy is good, right! Still want to be friends?”;)