Terms: Indefinite

So I got my indefinite leave to remain, but not without a six-hour struggle. A friend pointed out that it was lucky I hadn't hired a lawyer, because no lawyer would have cared about my case as much as I did. Basically, I hit them with as much paper (evidence) as I possibly could, and I used the journalist tactic of not taking no for an answer.

Why was I so desperate? Partly the fear of losing £950 (you have to pay up whether your application is accepted or rejected), but mostly the fear of losing my job -- and with it my right to remain in the UK, not to mention my eligibility for residency. For the past year or two, I've hung on to a job I haven't loved partly because I needed five years continuous on a work permit to qualify for residency.

After I escaped Croydon with the residence permit safely in my passport, I went home and cracked open the Krug and stared repeatedly at the sticker. Terms: Indefinite. I can work for whoever I want, and stay here as long as I want (unless I commit a crime, and I don't think they mean crime of fashion...)

I have never been very organized, and I blame this partly on binge eating. Everything is either a very immediate need -- so desperate, so overwhelming -- or just too much bother (especially when you're stuffed or just self-loathing). Which is why I can't help congratulating myself especially heartily for having been organized on the indefinite leave to remain front. I've had a lot going on, and yet I still was organized enough to take the test, book the appointment, and collect the necessary documents without a last-minute scramble. Yes, loads of people manage to do this sort of thing without feeling the need to congratulate themselves for it, but for me, when life seems overwhelming (which it does at the moment), I want to burrow into a mountain of pasta and hide, not organize bank statements and dig out my mother's death certificate to explain a 20-day absence from the UK right after my work permit was granted.

It's also a good thing I was so organized because today my company announced what I have been predicting for several months: That they are closing their foreign office and we are all losing our jobs. If I first had to call Croydon to set up an appointment now, I'd be out of luck -- I'd have to wait until January, by which point I'd be out of a job and ineligible.

I've been planning to leave for months, and now it looks like I'm going to be paid to do so (redundancy pay). But I still teared up a bit when I heard the news today. I guess it's one thing to think something is going to happen, and another to find out it certainly is.

And as I said to my grandmother, although I've been increasingly miserable in the job -- and feeling quite taken advantage of -- doing the residency application (which requires you to list all absences in and out of the country) reminded me of just how great things were at one point. What other job would have sent me -- in the same year -- to Afghanistan and then to a rapper's yacht in St. Tropez? I guess the danger is that I get so nostalgic and grateful for the experiences I had that I'm totally unable to negotiate...

In the middle of all this, I hit 100 days binge free -- and 80 pounds lost (weight this morning was 153). I expect this month -- and probably the few after it -- to be difficult, but I'm hoping to remember that eating doesn't solve any problem besides actual physical hunger.