At Age 53, I'm About To Become a U.S. Citizen

Less than 10 hours from now, I will be sworn in as a naturalized citizen of the United States of America.

So tonight, instead of writing this, I should be upstairs picking out my outfit and setting my alarm clock. Or I should be going through the checklist of this latest and final round of required USCIS paperwork.

And, really, if we're talking 'shoulds' here, I should be excited to wave some flags and sing some anthems. I should be happy.

Despite the divided and vitriolic state of things in this election year, I am not entirely unhappy.

More than happy, after almost 30 years of living in the USA, I'm incredulous.

One winter night 29-and-a-half years ago, I stood on a freezing pavement outside JFK Airport.

Earlier, on the seven-hour transatlantic plane journey, I had been so petrified that I had chawed my right thumbnail to the point of bleeding. After the seemingly endless immigration queue, I trekked across the arrivals terminal where my newbie questions and odd accent obviously ticked off the airport information woman.

Then, standing outside on the pavement, I hoisted my rucksack higher and kept gawking the wrong way as I waited for my upstate-bound bus that I assumed would drive down the left -- not the right -- side of the road.

I had $200 cash in my jeans pocket and of course, back then, there were no credit cards or cell phones or Plan Bs. On that freezing December night, I would never have believed that, on a future night, the middle-aged me would sit here on the eve of my citizenship fretting about my middle-aged bedtime.

But even more preposterous would be the prospect of me sitting here with my laptop, in my armchair, in my house, in my town and neighborhood.

The key word here?

"My."

See, on that pavement outside JFK, almost nothing was mine. That $200 in my jeans pocket? The night before my departure, I had borrowed it from a family member. My jean jacket -- which turned out to be useless for a New York winter -- was a left-behind from an ex-boyfriend.

More important: When you come of age in a country where the female script has already been written for you, when you spend most of your young-adult life and brain power trying to squish yourself into that square-peg role and life, you can barely pronounce that possessive pronoun, "my."

Now, if I have any advice for contemporary newbie immigrants, it would be this: A new country does not auto-spawn a new you.

Long after I had settled in here, for years and years, those voices still drifted across the Atlantic. Those old fingers wagged. Those old teeth clicked and tut-tutted: Oh! No! That's not for rural and working class girls like you.

Then, a decade or two in, those voices began to fade. No, scratch that. "Fade," isn't the right infinitive here. Those voices got overlaid, got shouted down by a new script that said, "Heck, girl, why not you?"

These days I wonder if that sassy voice was there all along. All it needed was a much larger and more anonymous amphitheater.

Now, even in these most uncivil and un-civic of American times, I find myself quoting from one of my favorite authors, who, incidentally, has cited his American citizenship ceremony as one of the most emotional events of his life.

In his bestselling book, "Cutting for Stone," Ethiopian-born physician-writer Abraham Verghese wrote:

That's the thing about America, the blessed thing. As many people as there are to hold you back, there are angels whose humanity make up for all the others. I've had my share of angels.

Me, too, Mr. Verghese. And, lucky me, my angels were loud and insistent -- even when I was trying very hard not to listen. Even when it was much easier to stay stuck in that not-for-girls-like-me comfort zone.

As I sit here writing this, I could list those angels' names, the folks who saw something in me and gave me a chance to prove my professional and personal chops.

But enough about me.

Tomorrow will be all about patriotism, citizenry and nation-hood. Tomorrow will be all about country.

Dare I say it yet?

My country.

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