Can One Lose Their TCK Identity?

992 days. Once this article is published, that is how long it will have been since I left my home country of four years. And through months of transition and changes and settling into the home I now have here in the States, some days I feel as if that TCK part of my heart has been put on hold, stuffed to the bottomless depths of who I am only to be brought up on anniversaries or reminiscing through photos of an alternate life. 

However, fairly recently I experienced, what some would call, a minuscule transition — nothing life-changing, but a change nonetheless. And all of my emotions from past grief came rushing back to the surface. I couldn’t help but think to myself, “Shouldn’t I be over this already?” Why did such a small change have such a huge impact, compared to the changes I went through in leaving two and a half years ago? 

I wish I could say I knew. Yet, my experience did beg the question: does one ever lose their identity as a TCK? Can you ever lose it? I once heard an analogy on being a TCK that went along the lines of this: take a ball of Play-Doh, molding clay, etc. Then, get another ball of the same substance but of another color. And now, mash the two balls together. Can you remove the different-colored balls from each other now? 

Regardless of how hard you try, or how many colors you add, you can’t separate the clays from each other. That is exactly what it’s like for us TCKs. We are all made up of every place we’ve ever loved or called “home” and though more clay from one place may be added than another over time, we still never lose those pieces of us. Instead, they are all melded together in a beautiful work of art unlike any other. 

But the amazing news is that those pieces only contribute to who we are. The only solid identity one can find is in Christ and who He says we, as believers, are: redeemed, called by name, and ultimately His (Isaiah 43:1). And that is an identity that can never be stripped from us, regardless of what comes our way.