“Okay so, where are you from?”

This one question used to leave me feeling so unsettled. Where do I start? How can I begin to explain to you where I am from?

I am an accumulation of my past and present experiences. I am a nomad. Rootless. I came to this conclusion a couple of days ago, actually. The realization hit me after months and years of going through an extremely uncomfortable phase in my life. You know what it was that hit me? This quote:

“So here you are, too foreign for home and too foreign for here, never enough for both.” – Ijeoma Umebinyuo, “Diaspora Blues”

It hit me because I resonated with this quote completely. It summed up what I had been feeling all my life. Without going into too much detail, I’m 21 and I’ve been fortunate enough to have traveled and lived in different countries all my life. By definition, I’m a ‘Third Culture Kid (TCK).’

The term was coined by sociologist Ruth Hill Useem who found that TCKs were children who had spent their significant part of their developmental years outside the parent’s culture.

For me, moving around opened my eyes and mind to different cultures, different world views and different ways of life, amongst many other things. It, in essence, made me who I am today, and for that I am proud and grateful. However there are things that no one tells you about being a ‘third culture kid’ (burdens, some might call them) that come along with such a great opportunity — you never feel like you belong anywhere.

Granted, your passport and birth certificate might say one thing. It ties you to one country. It might be where you were born. But that’s all it is. Yes. I know. ‘You’re getting a bit controversial.’ But let me explain it from my point of view.

You leave a country at the age of 6, and for 15 years of your 21 years of life, you move. Several times. It gets easy actually. Home assumes a completely different meaning to you. You know where to start with your room when it’s time to pack up. It’s routine. You know how to say goodbye, because you’ve learned to detach yourself. You’ve taught yourself how to form friendships that only hit the surface so that you don’t get too ‘deep.’ Why? As a form of protection. Not getting ‘too deep’ it makes it easier when the time comes to go your separate ways.

You learn to respect and accommodate other people and their cultures and beliefs, but you can never really take ownership of either.

And then you might move ‘home’ to your ‘home country’ where your parents are originally from and where you were born. For me, that was the most traumatizing thing I’ve ever had to go through.

When you’re abroad, you blend in because it’s obvious you are ‘foreign’ and through the years that is what you get used to. But in your home country, you expect and you are expected to fit in: To talk the way they talk, to have the same views that they do. You are one of them. So you try…But when you talk, when you walk, they can tell a difference. You’re different. For me, the social aspect was the most difficult. Relationships with extended family and friendship networks you used to be in contact with when you’d visit briefly in the past, you come to realize were just that. After your return, it was never that deep.

I used to find myself in limbo. But I’ve learned to embrace my past and my present. I am proud of my home country, and everywhere I go I carry my heritage. All the cultures I have been exposed to and all the experiences I have garnered over the years have made me, me. To be honest, I love the idea of travel, and I hope to travel a lot more in the future. I love the idea that I can change who I am everywhere I go. I feel content feeling like a nomad.

I feel free. I feel like a global citizen. And that I am proud of.

third culture kid

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