Just what I need at my age...

So, I went out to dinner with friends at the end of January and the weirdest thing happened to me. There we were, happily eating a Thai chicken dish and chatting away, when suddenly I could feel something in my right eye. Figuring it was an eyelash, I tried to blink it out, failed spectacularly, and then just sat there as my eye slowly puffed up until I couldn’t barely open it at all.

At this point I started to suspect this might be less of a rogue eyelash and more of a medical drama which was confusing, because I am not allergic to anything and never have been. I mentally reviewed what I’d eaten - some nuts, some crisps, rice, Thai spiced chicken, water because I was driving. There was nothing unusual, nothing suspicious, as far as I could see.

So then I moved on to evaluate everything else. I was wearing minimal make-up, but it was make-up I had worn before. Same with the face cream, just good old Neutrogena, hardly a reckless choice. Nothing was jumping out at me as the culprit, which felt rude given the circumstances.

I drove home while I could still technically see and took one of Thomas’s prescription antihistamines. The next morning I woke up unable to open either eye, which really felt like an escalation. Thomas took me to the out-of-hours, where they confirmed it definitely looked like a bad allergic reaction, which was helpful in the sense that it gave it a name, but less helpful in the sense that I still had no idea to what.

I was feeling very sorry for myself. I don’t exactly have a surplus of social opportunities here, so turning into Quasimodo on a rare night out didn’t feel like a strong long-term strategy for friendship.

The aftermath was dramatic. I was utterly exhausted, like I had run a marathon or given birth, neither of which I had done, and I was completely useless for two days.

Fast forward a week and I’m brushing my hair, minding my own business, when my lip starts to tingle. I look in the mirror and, sure enough, my mouth is swelling. When did I get the free lip fillers?! This time I grabbed an antihistamine immediately like a seasoned professional. The swelling went down and the exhaustion only lasted a few hours, which was a relief. I put it down to a really crazy coincidence.

Another week later, I’m sitting in my armchair, no make-up, no face cream, not even having eaten yet, just watching the evening news, when my other eye suddenly decides to close for business. Despite the antihistamine, I’m back in bed for two days recovering, still completely at a loss.

So, what do we all do in these situations now? Obviously, I described all three episodes to AI, listing everything I had eaten and everything that had been near my skin and asked what it thought, because nothing says calm, rational thinking like consulting a robot at this point.

Its first suggestion, without me even mentioning it, was that I might have developed a severe NSAID allergy which was interesting, because I hadn’t said anything about taking any. Then I thought back and realised that on all three occasions, I had taken ibuprofen about four hours before the swelling began. I've always been fairly prone to headaches.

Thomas suggested I simply take a couple more just to double check, which I didn't particularly fancy given each occasion had left me in bed exhausted for 48 hours. ChatGPT, for once the voice of reason, suggested that could end in anaphylaxis if it was escalating, so I decided to go with tests at the GP instead.

And yes, it turns out I have indeed developed an allergy to painkillers. At exactly the point in life when you start needing them more often. Timing really is everything, isn’t it?

Vote day

Today is election day in Denmark.

It is the third general election since I moved here, and like the others, I cannot vote. Neither can my son, who moved here at 13 and is now 20. In many ways, that has always been the quieter injustice. No one I know is more Danish than he is. He speaks the language like a native, has a general school leaving certificate from here and an STX (grammar high school) leaving certificate too. He understands the culture instinctively, and has grown into adulthood here. I know too that if we were to move away again, he alone would stay. There is nowhere else he would rather be, than here in the country of the only father he has ever known, who has brought him up since before his first birthday. He is, in every way that matters, more Danish than his sisters, who moved here at 11 and 9, but because of their genetics own a Danish passport. And yet, he has no vote and will potentially be close to 30 before he actually can apply for citizenship given only years of continuous full-time work counts towards it, not studies or part-time work. 

It seems strange to me that immigrant kids, including ones born here have to choose when they leave high school around 20 whether to further their studies or take more menial jobs to further their citizenship journey and secure their precarious statuses. How can it possibly better for Denmark if the cleverest kids are forced to choose to work in bars and shops rather than study to be doctors and dentists?

But this election feels different to me, though, because of Anna.

Anna turned 18 in December, and today she can participate fully in the democracy of the country that shaped her teenage years. I am proud of her. Of course I am. But I am also left with a strange and uncomfortable awareness of my own position.

I carried her for nine months. I gave birth to her. I fed her, raised her, and helped her become who she is. I share half her DNA, half her history, half her story. And yet, I have no say in the country that governs her life. 

There is something deeply dissonant about being considered good enough to give birth to and raise future citizens, but not good enough to be one. Trusted to nurture, to contribute, to build a family and a life here, but not trusted with a voice.

It is hard not to feel that line, even in the most ordinary moments. Standing in an airport, for example, and having to queue separately from my own children because they carry Danish passports and I do not. It is a small, practical thing. At their ages, it is manageable. But it is also quietly absurd, this idea that a family I quite literally created can be split by a passport control queue as I am considered somehow less than them.

And it is not just one nationality in our case. I have five children. Three carry French passports, two carry Danish ones, and I remain only a UK citizen. It is such a modern fragmentation of identity. It feels oddly out of step with how things once worked. I remember my former (German) mother-in-law telling me that when she married my former (French) father-in-law around 1950, she was simply issued French nationality. She became what her family was. She shared a nationality with her children as a matter of course. That kind of continuity feels almost unimaginable now.

Instead, I find myself in a position where, despite having given birth to two Danish children and built a life here, it is highly unlikely that I will ever meet the requirements to become Danish myself. I passed the language requirement for citizenship six years ago. That part, at least, I managed. But the rules also require 3.5 years of full-time employment, and at 58, finding someone willing to employ a foreigner full time is, realistically, not something I can count on.

So I remain outside. Not outside the life, because my life is here. Not outside the investment, because many of the people I care about are rooted here. But outside the formal recognition of belonging.

Today, I will watch my daughter step into a right that I do not have, and that her brother, who feels even more deeply of this place, is also denied. I will feel proud. And I will feel the weight of that separation.

And I will keep wondering what it really means to belong in a country that some of my children can call theirs, but I cannot.