My boyfriend and I recently got our passports and I couldn’t be more excited! We are traveling to his brother’s wedding, which is a destination wedding in Mexico. There are a few milestones here: it will be the first son in the family to get married, it is the first wedding I am attending as solely a date, and it will be Stephen’s and my first time out of the U.S. We didn’t have passports prior so we needed to get them before I was comfortable looking for plane tickets. Though we discussed getting passports since the beginning of the year, we waited quite a while to actually get them. Then, it got down to the wire. We needed the passports. Mid-May, I realized that our passports might not arrive in time before the wedding since they take an average of 6-8 weeks to process. I was extremely nervous that there would be a problem in getting them processed and that would mess up our plans for the wedding. And Stephen can’t miss his older brother’s wedding!
Stephen and I started filling out paperwork and realized that it was a lot more involved than we initially realized. Since we are both still out-of-state students, the Department of State required much more paperwork from us. So, instead of needing only our birth certificates and government issued I.D.s, we needed about 7 other forms of identification. Days before we were set to go to the courthouse, I gathered check-stubs, tax paperwork, car registration, and anything else I could find that they would treat as proof of my identity. Stephen had to do the same thing. Needless to say, I was a nervous wreck by the time we got to the courthouse. I had forgotten to bring quarters with us for the parking meters so we had to take a detour to a bank. Then, we both brought our phones into the courthouse and were stopped by security causing us another trip to the car. Thankfully, the application line wasn’t very long, but we had stacks of paperwork and the clerk said she had never seen people so prepared for their passport application. Though we had all our proofs of identification, I had to fill out a special form confirming that I had known Stephen for over 2 years. I swear, when Stephen and I go to apply for our marriage license, it won’t be nearly as tiresome as our experience with the passport application.
Finally, we left the courthouse. I was relieved to at least have the process done and over with. We chose the expedited option for our applications so that we would receive them within 2-3 weeks, allowing us enough time to still by plane tickets. For a whole week after the application process, I kept wondering if perhaps I had filled something out incorrectly or if the clerk forgot to tell us to sign somewhere and we would be denied our passports. But, two weeks and a day after we filled out the applications, we received our passports in the mail!
Of course, I was happy that we could now attend the destination wedding, but I was also happy for another reason. This passport was my key to traveling the world. Why hadn’t I gotten one before?! I get excited now knowing that if I want to travel internationally, all I need are to make plans for it. Italy? Spain? Paris? Africa? England? All accessible because I have a passport. I can’t wait to travel the world and see what new things I can learn. I can’t wait to write about my experiences. The world is mine!
Dreams of Bold 