Holy Croatian Wedlock Batman!

I think it’s going to be an April wedding– mostly because he needs an apartment after this semester. Wait, wait…let me back up.

I started my official graduate classes this January after a long, boring onslaught of prerequisite undergrad catching up. Apparently, my school follows the grand grad student tradition of being a magnet for international students seeking a higher education. With the influx of euro-hotties, the possibilities for entrepreneurial advancement are immense.

Enter Croatian boy– Tall, skinny, and disarmingly euro (or gay, but I’m going with Euro). His glasses aren’t available in the states and his shoes have seaming on them you can only find abroad. He also is experiencing the unfortunate disadvantages of not having a social security number. Try to get a cell phone, buy a car, or rent an apartment without a SSN and you have to do some major finagling. At least once a week he asks me how he applies for a social security number, to which I often reply, “You can’t, until we get married.”

In my defense, I didn’t bring it up first. The idea was thrust upon us by a mutual friend and it has become a running joke ever since. “Valentine’s Day is coming up, how do you feel about going to get hitched” or “I can’t call you until I get a cell phone, are you busy after class” you know, the standard. But all this international conglomeration has been making me think. Not so much about selling myself into a wedded grave, but about the impact internationalization is making on our lives- specifically in a post collegiate “what in the world am I going to do with my life” sense.

I’ve got friends who live in Europe and Africa, most of my friends have done their stint abroad, and still more have plans to become ex-pats in the next few decades. Previous generations didn’t necessarily have such exposure to other cultures unless they were drafted or wealthy. My dad went to Israel while he was in seminary but hasn’t seen the inside of an intercontinental airplane since. My mom’s first experience with the Euro trash was two years ago and my grandparents think that anything out of the Eastern Time zone isn’t worth seeing. With the world getting smaller, we are expected to be not only more cognizant of international occurrences but able to adapt our thinking to a mindset outside our own.

While it’s very exciting to have so many opportunities, it’s also a tad overwhelming. When someone asks me where I plan on being in the next five years, my thoughts range from continent to continent trying to solidify where I want to be. Having the ability to be anything and go anywhere makes actually choosing somewhere to be a daunting reality. To some extent it makes me frozen, afraid of choosing the wrong thing. Conversely, it makes me hopeful that I will, one day, be able to call somewhere beyond these contiguous 48 states my home. Perhaps Croatia.