written by a Third Culture Kid
It was summertime when I realized that home was no longer home. The town where I grew up was quite small – it only took about ten minutes to drive between the two hills that bordered the town.
The buildings in the middle were old-fashioned. Everything seemed old now. The parks I walked through, the school where I learned cursive and addition, all of them were nostalgic for me, but normal for everyone else. The green fields I once drove by everyday felt new again.
I had taken these places for granted, not yet knowing how easily things can go from common to sparse. I remembered the buildings, but they didn’t seem to remember me. How long would it take for the people to forget me too?
My brother was lucky, in a way. He was too little when we left and remembered nothing about the little town where we grew up. Meanwhile I, eight years old and still taller than him, had left with broken, random memories.
Grandparents would often ask, “Do you remember this?” pointing at the buildings as we passed them. I always nodded, not wanting to disappoint them with the fact that I had yet to remember what we did there or what mattered about them. I did not want to disappoint them with the fact that the only building I wanted to go to was my house. Not here, back in Thailand.
“Do you remember your friend —-?” I would nod once more, not bothering to remind them of the fact that I had left those friends behind, made new ones, and not talked to them since. I remembered my home, but I also didn’t.
The culture shock was not expected. After all, I had grown up there. The paved, clean roads, the rooms filled with English, the sea of white wherever we walked. The talkative strangers, who acted as if everyone they met had been their friend for years.
It was all different. It was new, but not new. The habits I had picked up in Thailand carried through. I was nine years old, reminding myself I didn’t have to bow, didn’t have to take off my shoes outside. One day I would learn to become a whole different person, the habits just barely slipping through a facade.
In Canada, I became “the girl who is from Thailand.” In Thailand, I became “the girl who is from Canada.” I could never be fully either. I was stuck between two cultures, two worlds, at only ten years old. I was home, but I also wasn’t.
A pandemic passed, and suddenly I was a teenager. I was thirteen, relatives back “home” telling me how much they missed me and wanted me to come back, already starting to assume I’d come back “home” for university.
“You could always stay here with me while your family is in Thailand,” my aunt would say. I didn’t want to disappoint them with the fact that I didn’t miss Canada. I didn’t want to travel the long distance, didn’t want to go there after university, didn’t want to leave my home.
Canada felt cold in more ways than one. Thailand was my home. The fruit was sweeter, the weather was warmer, and I felt at home. I enjoyed showing it to them, but it always ended up being us who made the trip. I was fourteen, putting on a face, learning the ways of pretending I loved Canada. I was fourteen, acting as I was expected to be: the oldest granddaughter. The Canadian-but-Thai girl. The eight-year-old girl I left behind, yet my family still knew me as. I knew my role. My mother taught me well.
I was Canadian. I was Thai. I was international. I was eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, and fourteen. I was so many things at once. I was acting. I was overwhelmed. Who am I? Who do they want me to be? Which path am I supposed to follow? What do I do? Who do I want to be? I didn’t know. I would never know, and I’d be stuck acting as different people for different groups forever and I can’t do it anymore and–-
Then, all of the sudden, I’m fifteen. I’m fifteen, and I realize the truth. It didn’t matter where I was from. What I was was a child of God. I wasn’t part of Canada, or Thailand, but part of the kingdom of the King. The only opinion that mattered was His. He accepted me for who I was, whether I was Canadian or Thai or anything else. He gave me peace. I still feel as though my relatives won’t see my whole, true self. But now I know who I am, and my inner child can rest.
