their learning experiences and the obstacles.
It’s interesting for me to read those posts, because although I spent a huge portion of my life as an expat,
I never felt like one, until I moved back to America, the country that bore its name on my passport.
I think that in a way that sheltered me from all those things that make expat life hard.
They taught me things about the world that I never would have known were it not for my childhood abroad, and while it did make many things difficult, it has given me a perspective on the world I wouldn’t change for anything.
for yourself as a citizen of this world.
it doesn’t have to be hard, it doesn’t have to be the unknown. At the end of the day, no matter where you put your finger on a map, those are people just living and loving like us, those countries are trying to do what they can for their people, and those places are all part of our growing
interconnected global community.Coming “home” to the States for me as a child tested me in ways that many expats can tell you about:
unsure of local customs, unaware of pop culture, feelings of being unsettled or not fitting in.
All of those things I remember like they were yesterday and all of those things also created something in me that has stuck with me through all these years.
When I look in the mirror now, as a TCK all grown up, now living in the country that met me with such a chaotic few years way back when,
I see all the countries that have built me,
I see all the faces of people from all different walks of life,
all different ethnicities, that have gotten me where I am today.
When I look in the mirror I see the American that I never really knew existed
until half way through my life, I see the little pale girl in the Arabian desert that built my foundation,
and I see the home that I’ve finally found all around me.
It took me a very long time to find “home,”
but I’ve learned that no matter where you go, “home” isn’t a physical place,
it’s something within you that gets sparked when you finally figure out who you are and embrace
all the places that got you to today.
Interested in reading more about my childhood in Saudi Arabia?
See all of my posts on the country!