Ego Non Habeo Patriam

Time Magazine Asks: "Does sending more soldiers to Iraq make any sense?"

Bush is sending them. 21,500 of them.

We watched the speech. Protests were ringing in the background. We couldn't make out the words, but it soundedn an awful lot like "F--- Bush" to us. In the news footage afterwards, some bigshot in the media declared that the American Empire was over. My mom whimpered. It's existed a long time for her. Not a brief second in history, only a few years of my own childhood. But a long time for her.

"Miranda, can I go with you when you move to Norway?" My sister.

"Of course. Mom?"

"If both of you are there, why not!"

Then we hit the brick wall of practicalities. Mom thinks every place in the world other than the US is too cold or dangerous, with the lone exception of the UK, which is "too expensive". France was considered, but she doesn't know French. That's fine, actually. Curacao was her favourite choice - they speak English, and it's warm, and it's cheap... but she didn't want us so far away.

And it hit me, we were considering it. We still have everything here, and Dad doesn't know a word of our scheming, and nothing comes to anything, but we're considering it. And I've been considering it for a long time. And the question comes to me: Could I really do it? Could I really leave America? I'd be an ex-patriate. The idea scares me somehow. But the answer comes to me just as quickly. Harshly, in rough Latin, it etches itself across my mind.

Ego Non Habeo Patriam.