There is a ticking clock in the back of my head.

November 10, 2027. That is when my visa expires, and when, due to the intricate complexities of decades of policy, I could be sent away. 

Not home, of course. My home, whether at my flat in Townhead or my mum’s house in Peterhead, is in Scotland. My family lives here, my sisters and brother, and this is where my father died. 

Yet, I live in a constant state of precarity.

In 19 months, you see, I will have to make enough money to qualify for a skilled worker visa, for the honour of which I will then pay £1,035 per year for the NHS and £885 to apply. 

And that’s because I am considered a ‘new entrant’ to the workforce.

After the age of 26, the salary threshold rises again. 

The author moved to the UK in August 2020, during the pandemic.

The limit is at the upper bound for us scribes these days, especially for someone who is a year out of university.

I am not, of course, asking for your sympathy. I had just turned 18 when my parents moved here for work. I could have stayed in the United States, alone, and gotten on with life. 

But I chose to follow. 

If I can scrape together enough as a hack to earn a visa, I should be eligible to apply for indefinite leave to remain in the autumn of 2030 — under the ten-year ‘long residence’ scheme.

Of course, the Labour government has announced plans to extend the standard wait time from five years to ten… and this could lead to the ‘long residence’ scheme being replaced altogether. 

Confused? Welcome to my life. 

I know I am a lot more privileged than most who come to Scotland from other countries. My personal and cultural connections provide me with an advantage others simply do not have. 

Not to mention the colour of my skin. 

The fact is that for me, Scotland is home. Despite that ever-present ticking clock (as I write this, Armageddon is 603 days away), I love my life here. 

Every time I drive past the snow-capped mountains on my way north, or stare into the inky blackness of the night sky, or watch the moon reflect off the waves along the coast. 

The conversations at the bus stop, the songs and stories of yesterday, yes, even the buzz of Glasgow’s streets as I walk to work, tell me I am home.

The mass shooting in Dunblane was 30 years ago earlier this month. (Image: Jane Barlow/PA)

Yet, where there is beauty, there is also darkness. As a journalist, I see that every day. Scotland is not immune from the hatred and division of which my homeland is the chief exporter. 

I think of Dunblane, 30 years ago this month. 17 innocents slain in their school gymnasium. 

A horror, but an average Tuesday in America. 

Desperate to see that the dead did not die in vain, a nation took action.

But America has a gun lobby which feeds its taste for blood.

No chance of change there.

Above all else, beneath the crags of anxiety, I can sense the self-evident truth that compels me — that life is best spent in the company of those you love.

My mother Julia, the reverend doctor, is one such person. A Church of Scotland minister on the windswept Buchan coast, she spends her days tending to the souls of her flock while raising a child on her own.

Such strength inspires me to stay — how could I leave her behind?

The author's father, Joe Pizzuto-Pomaco. (Image: NQ)

Indeed, time is a most peculiar thing. It has been three years and six months since my father died in an Aberdeen hospice room.

Odd, it was just two years after our family of six moved here at the height of the pandemic. 

Motor neuron disease took its toll, and changed my life forever.

Buried in a simple cemetery near the small New Jersey town where I was raised, part of him will always be an ocean away. 

Yet, the rest, the memories, are here — in trips to Edinburgh and St Andrews, in fruitless driving lessons during lockdown, in laughter and tears and a thousand things more. 

That too is why I want to stay.

Of course, my beautiful Emily, my love. She too is here. As is my brother and my sisters, who have stood by me in an oft-unforgiving world.

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I have no ancestral claim to Scotland. I recognise that fully. 

Instead, my birthright is a bruised and battered American dream, shattered by the prejudice and perversion of angry men.

I am not sure I could feel at home there again, amidst the hustle and bustle of life and the frenetic pace of keeping up with the Jones.

So here I am. Anxious and unsure.

But as we are told in the book of Matthew, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.

Yes, the clock ticks on unceasingly. But for now, my heart is here. 

© Herald Scotland