Waiting for Residency

I submitted my Irish residency application last week. I think maybe it should have been a celebratory moment but it mostly felt like a huge relief that it was done.

I am, by most counts (but not all), a rule follower.

I prefer to cross at crosswalks, I like an orderly queue, and I’ll follow administrative instructions without complaint.

And although everyone says I should have no trouble with being approved for residency, I still took the process seriously. It was also the first move we’ve made where I had to do all of the application administration.

When we moved around in Canada, most of what I did was logistics—coordinating the physical move of our belongings, setting up utilities, moving us and our cat.

Because my husband had work sponsorship for our move to Spain, all of our residency and work permit applications were taken care of by the agency his work hired. This turned out to be critical, as I’m sure we would have had a terrible time navigating it without being fluent (or even passable) in Spanish.

Our move to Ireland was one we did on our own. It was a bit easier than our move to Spain because we had already downsized to our “nomad kit” (our whole lives now fit into 8 suitcases), and because my husband is an EEA citizen.

My citizenship has yet to come through, though, so I had to go through the process of claiming my EU treaty rights as his spouse.

Now that’s done and it’s just a matter of waiting for a decision.

And now that I’ve done everything I can do, I can focus on other things while I wait.

I can visit other parts of my new home. When we were here for vacation, we saw Galway, and much of the coast near Dublin–but there’s still so much more of Ireland I want to explore.

I can also focus on growing my business again. While I’ve been working on my application, my main focus was with my existing clients. Now I have some time to get into some new projects, which I’m excited by!

And, most importantly, I can reconnect with friends and start rebuilding my network here in Ireland.

The application process wasn’t difficult, but was an obligation that hung in the air for me.

It’s nice now that I can breathe a little bit easier, even as I await an official decision.