third•cul•ture•kid (TCK)
[thurd-kuhl-cher-kid]
noun
1. refers to children raised in a culture other than their parents’ for the majority of their childhood.
I am a “Third Culture Kid.” I was born in Bahrain in the Middle East. I lived there (and briefly in Saudi Arabia) until I was almost 14 – bar a brief period of almost 4 years in the middle when I moved back to Ireland. Both my parents are Irish, born and raised (mostly) in County Cork. I consider myself Irish as well, as that’s where my passport and family are from. Yet, always throughout my life, I have had kibitzers insisting that I can’t be Irish.
You don’t have an Irish accent, you sound American!
You were born in ‘Arabia’, you must be from there.
(Arabia isn’t a country FYI).
Well, like, don’t you have a passport from there?
Well, I’m definitely not Bahraini! Being born there doesn’t give me a claim to the culture and heritage they possess. So if I’m “not” Irish, then what am I? Welcome to the conundrum of a TCK. Growing up I never felt like I belonged anywhere. “Home” was wherever I was currently, no matter how long I was there for. We moved a lot as I was growing up, I’ve lived in around 11 houses, so home was more of a concept than a tangible place. This poem ‘Longing’, sums it up perfectly;
I long for something,
Without knowing what.
I long for somewhere,
without knowing where.
I long for change,
For that next adventure…
I’m restless and bored,
Ready to start somewhere new.
And yet I long to settle,
To put down roots.
To call someplace home
And know it’s my own.
But where is that elusive home?
That place where I belong,
Where I am neither other
Nor outsider?
I am homesick,
But I don’t know for where…
For which country, which place,
Which home?
My heart aches,
Without knowing for what.
It longs for something
That I cannot define.
Such is the path
Of my third culture kid journey:
Sometimes confusing, often contradictory…
And forever longing.
I always longed for that “home” that you always hear people rave about. A place where you recognise every smell. A place where you feel at ease. A place where you know every corner and every back road and every hidden spot. Where you recognise every bright smile, wrinkled face, and wagging tail. When I lived abroad I always felt that I should call Ireland “home”. When I visited though I never felt that affinity that I should. When I moved back here for a while Bahrain felt like it should be “home”. Then a couple of years later, when I visited, it felt like the furthest thing from it.
I’ve figured out since then, for a nomad like myself, home tends to lie in people and feelings rather than places. Home lies in the arms of my mother, my sister, my grandparents. Home lies in the stories and giggles I share with my closest friends. Home lies in the incredible sensation of performance. Home lies in memories.
Having said that, I went back to Bahrain recently to visit and it wasn’t until I got back to Ireland that I realised it was probably the last time I’d be out there. Even though my Dad and his family still live out there, at the end of this academic year all my friends will go to university, mostly in the UK, so there’ll be little sense to me going out there, rather than my Dad visiting here to see the rest of his family as well. When I realised this, I was hit with a sudden longing and pang of pain. I had convinced myself that I had no attachment to Bahrain anymore, I’m only really in contact with one friend from there and, besides, it doesn’t hold the best memories. Still, for a long time, it was the closest thing I ever knew to home.
Endings suck. I’ve built up a tolerance to them over the years; most of the time I know when one is coming, or I know I’m going to see people again. It’s the endings that you don’t expect, however, that hurt the most. When you realise, “Oh, I’m never going to see this person/country again. Okay.” Those goodbyes, when you didn’t even realise that it was your last goodbye until too late, leave you without a sense of closure. Closure is such an underrated tool in recovery. It’s like an uncovered and untreated wound; without closure, the pain can be much worse and last much, much longer.
Maybe someday I’ll settle down and finally call one place home, but for now, I’m okay with having a changeable home. I’m okay that little pieces of me exist in different corners of the world. I love the fact that I always long for change, something different. It gives me a passion and a drive to escape from monotonous routines. Though there are pros and cons, I wouldn’t change anything. My life has given me strength, courage and confidence that I wouldn’t have if I had lived in one place my entire life
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Lots of love,
P.S. My accent is not American, it is your typical “International School Accent”, or “Mid-Atlantic” if you will. Basically, like me, it doesn’t quite belong anywhere!