I Had to Live the Immigration Process Before I Could Guide Others Through It

10 years ago, I sat in the waiting room of an immigration office with my husband, terrified we'd made a mistake that would cost us everything. Today, I'm an immigration attorney.

That day, I wasn't anyone's attorney but just a terrified spouse. The one who couldn't sleep, who kept re-reading the forms, who felt like our entire future was sitting in a folder someone else got to judge.

I think about that a lot now that I'm the person on the other side of the desk.

When people ask what going through it myself gave me, they expect something about strategy or expertise. It wasn't that. What it gave me was the ability to actually mean it when I tell a client, "I understand what you're going through."

Because I do. I know what it feels like to have something this important completely out of your hands.

It changes how I work.

When a client gets upset about how long the government is taking, or frustrated by a process that makes no sense, my first instinct is "I remember feeling exactly like this."

So I lean into that. Especially with the clients who are scared, or angry, or difficult, because a lot of the time the difficulty is fear wearing a different face.

I can't always fix the situation. Sometimes the options just aren't good.

But I can be the person who understands the weight of it, and stays in it with them anyway.

That's the part of this job no firm ever taught me.

I had to live it first.