One of the defining aspects of a TCK is that they live in a different country than the one that their extended family does. We have a culture of home, and then the culture of the place we live in. These two cultures blend into a third culture, hence the name Third Culture Kid, or TCK.
However, for many of us (like myself), there are many more cultures than just two that influence my life. I personally have six different, unique, places that all are a part of my life. Each of these places holds different people and memories.
Traveling between all of these places is a weird experience for me. I am a social chameleon and am heavily influenced by the people that I am around. The cultures of these places are so extremely different from each other that I seem like an extremely different person depending on where I am.
Looking back at different stages of my life, I can see how the places I went and the people I hung out with influenced me. As a pre-teen, I was relatively calm and I didn’t do “crazy and stupid stuff”, according to my mom. This was because I only saw people my age twice a year, and without the influence of other pre-teens, I listened to my mom more.
However, when I started Sophomore year of high school, I was around a lot more kids my age. This was when I started going against and questioning what my parents said. My character and personality changed, and I made some not-so-smart decisions. I have since (mostly) changed my thinking and I (mostly) listen to my parents more. (Love you, mom!)
The whole point is that the place where I live affects my life– a lot. I let myself be a different person when I go to different places. This is mostly pretty good, because it allows me to fit in and make friends easily. However, there are two reasons why this is a bad thing.
The first thing is that there are some places that I won’t be able to return to, or the places have changed so much that I can’t recognize them anymore. When this happens, I feel like there is a part of my life– a part of me– that doesn’t exist anymore. This can lead to pretty bad depression and an overall emptiness.
The second thing is that sometimes I feel as if I don’t have a true personality. I feel as if I don’t really know who I am, because for my entire life, who I am depended on who I was around and where I was.
Eventually, I came to this conclusion: I am not finding my identity in God. When I think about myself in relation to God, I know exactly who I am. I am chosen, I am fearfully and wonderfully made, I am kind, I am beautiful, and I am loved. I’ve spent my life trying to be what others want me to be, but now I want to be who God made me to be. I’m trying to find my true identity: my identity in God.
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