I didnt understand how I could feel like both an insider and outsider.
By
Updated 3 years ago,January 3, 2022
I never liked the expression third-culture kid.
Oh, your mum is Pakistani but your dad is Australian?
Ian Dooley
You fall into thesecond category.
Or my favorite: Oh, you spent your entire life in the States?
That was my justification all these years for not buying into the label TCK.
Ian Dooley
They dive in, but theyre always ready to dive out.
As it turns out, I am a third-culture kid.
I was home-schooled through second grade, as it wasnt feasible to keep pulling me out for extended trips.
When I finally enrolled in a real school, I struggled making friends.
When I came home from school one day, my parents told me to pack my bags.
The following week, we boarded a plane to the Middle East.
I was told six months.
Fast forward three years, and we are boarding a plane back to America.
In my mind, I was entering a familiar society; a society I thought I could return easily.
But no sooner did I discover it was not my home anymore.
I was now the alien.
Although my passport said I was American, that wasnt how I felt.
We dont have the same accent or skin color.
We dont cheer for the same World Cup team.
We dont have the same countries listed in our passport.
But we each know life beyond the confines of our passport country.
We tell the same stories and laugh at the same jokes.
We experience the same where are you from?
Often, we even know the same people.
Instead of seasons or age, we bookmark our lives by places and moments.
I had my first kiss in Costa Rica.
My first cigarette on a Greek isle.
My first glass of champagne in Paris.
I rode my first school bus in Qatar.
I had my first encounter with God on an airplane flying over the Icelandic mountains when I was 17.
When I was living in Chicago, my dad came to visit.
He noticed I had nothing on my bedroom walls.
When my dad asked why, I told him I didnt see the point; Chicago wasnt home.
We enjoy intensely, feel deeply, and love fiercely because of the certainty nothing and nobody will last.
I believe TCKs often feel like they were made for another world.
One that transcends boundaries and nation perimeters.
Somewhere between a diamond and a rubber band; chiseled and unmistakable, yet elastic and versatile.
You realize how big God is.
You realize the solace in holding things, people, and places lightly.
You realize it doesnt matter what language someone speaks, because you still feel the same things.
It is why I want to raise my own children between the same cracks.
It is why I am proud to be a third-culture kid.
