A Google Search, a Dissertation, and the Cost of Waiting

The other day, I did something completely ordinary.

I Googled my dissertation topic.

Not because I needed to conduct research. Not because I had forgotten my findings. I simply wanted a quick reminder…a reference point for something I had spent years studying, writing, and ultimately completing as part of my MSc in Integrative Therapy.

What I expected was information.

What I found was perspective.

As links appeared on my screen, I was unexpectedly confronted with evidence of my own work. Research. References. Academic footprints left behind during one of the most intellectually demanding periods of my life.

For a moment, I simply stared.

Not because I was surprised the work existed.

Because I was surprised by how disconnected I had become from it.

My dissertation was completed successfully. More than successfully, if I'm honest. It received accolades and recognition that reflected years of study, professional experience, and personal commitment.

And yet, despite reaching that milestone, I have spent the last six months standing still.

The realization hit harder than I expected.

Not because six months is a particularly long time. In the grand scheme of life, it is barely a pause.

But because those six months align almost perfectly with another journey I have been pursuing: the path toward a second citizenship.

For many people, citizenship is paperwork.

For me, it is something far more emotional.

As an American living in Europe, married to a German, raising children whose identities span countries and cultures, the question of citizenship is inseparable from questions of belonging, security, and the future.

It is also inseparable from my growing concerns about the direction of the United States.

I am hardly alone in that concern.

Over the past several years, many Americans abroad have found themselves asking difficult questions. Questions about stability. Questions about democracy. Questions about where they feel safest building the next chapter of their lives.

Pursuing a second citizenship has been my response to those questions.

It has also become, without my fully realizing it, a source of hesitation.

Somewhere along the way, caution transformed into paralysis.

I began treating every professional aspiration, every academic ambition, every future plan through the lens of a single question:

"What if this somehow complicates the citizenship process?"

The question sounds reasonable.

Until you realize it has become the reason you stop moving.

Looking at those search results, I suddenly saw something I had not wanted to acknowledge.

I was not waiting because there was nothing to do.

I was waiting because uncertainty had become an excuse.

A comfortable one.

A respectable one.

But an excuse nonetheless.

The irony is impossible to miss.

My dissertation explored themes of healing, resilience, and human potential. For more than twenty-five years, I have worked with women, children, and families recovering from trauma. I have spent a lifetime helping others recognize the ways fear can quietly shrink their world.

Yet there I was, doing exactly that to myself.

Not dramatically.

Not consciously.

Just enough to remain suspended between who I have been and who I want to become.

The Google search reminded me of something important.

The dissertation was never the finish line.

It was proof of what I am capable of when I move toward something rather than away from it.

The real question is not whether my citizenship application succeeds.

The real question is whether I am willing to put my life on hold while waiting for certainty.

Because certainty is a moving target.

There will always be another form to submit.

Another decision pending.

Another political development to worry about.

Another reason to postpone taking the next step.

At some point, the waiting itself becomes the obstacle.

I don't regret pursuing citizenship.

Far from it.

The decision is deeply considered and rooted in legitimate concerns about the future. It reflects the reality of being both American and European, of caring deeply about two places while feeling increasingly uncertain about one of them.

But I do regret allowing that process to convince me that everything else should remain on pause.

Seeing my work appear on that screen reminded me that I am still the same woman who completed that dissertation.

The same woman who built a career helping others heal.

The same woman who crossed oceans, built a life in another country, raised a family between cultures, and continually reinvented herself when circumstances demanded it.

That person has not disappeared.

She has simply been waiting.

And perhaps six months is long enough.

Citizenship will take the time it takes.

The future of America will unfold as it unfolds.

The bureaucracy will continue being bureaucratic.

But life is happening now.

A simple Google search reminded me of that.

Sometimes the most important discoveries aren't found in the search results.

They're found in the moment you realize you've been waiting for permission to continue, and that permission was yours to give all along.