I have an unusual appreciation for being alone, because it's how I walk through life. I'm detached from any place that I once called home and have no idea how to answer the question, "where are you from?" But before you think I'm just some edgy teen with her head in the clouds, let me explain.

My parents are from opposite sides of the earth and met and had my brother and me in a city that was novel to both of them: Los Angeles. We lived there for the first six years of my life, making it the longest place I've ever lived. By default, LA seems like the most logical place for me to claim I'm from - except I hardly remember anything about it. My dad works in the Foreign Service, which basically means we live a diplomatic lifestyle abroad. I've moved eight times to the most random places around the globe, ranging from Nepal to South Africa. In each of these posts, we only remained for an average of two years, making it challenging to establish home in one right before we moved onto the next. As a result, I have no childhood friends, no literal sense of home, and the occasional identity crisis.

I'm a full on third-culture kid, which by definition means kids who were raised in countries other than their passports, or as BBC puts it, "citizens of everywhere and nowhere." But people feel a natural, harmless pull to simplify me; to categorize my nationality into black or white. Funny enough, they often resort to calling me "Korean" or "Sri Lankan" or the nationality of wherever it is I'm living at the time. I still haven't gotten used to being called South African by a group of fellow LA natives. In South Africa, I'm American, but in America, I'm South African. I have no affiliation with South Africa besides the fact that I physically lived there; I don't speak any of their native languages, I attended an American international school where I was surrounded by more Europeans than locals, and was only there for two years. So what does that make me?

This being said, I wouldn't change my unorthodox lifestyle for anything. Yes, there are times when I secretly envy people who have hometowns with friends and family that they can always return to, but my admiration for the consistency in others' lives is outweighed by my appreciation for the variance in my own. I've experienced something so precious and rare that it makes the exceptionally challenging long-distance friendships and the fact that I'm 18 and still don't have my driver's license, completely worth it. My experiences abroad have contributed to an exposure that I'm incredibly lucky to have attained at such a young age; they humble me to open my mind, broaden my perspective to appreciate differences, and remind me of the bigger picture when first world problems get the best of me.

During my years abroad, I was never alone in my lifestyle. I was surrounded by people who lived like me, people who became my community, and often, my family. Being alone is more liberating than it is lonely, because I'm not really alone. My family and friends around the world are my home, but wherever I am is home too. I always felt so awkward answering the question, "where are you from" with "LA," to avoid a pretentious explanation of my lifestyle, but it won't be awkward anymore. Being a third-culture kid has given me adaptability and independence, and as I transition to UCLA, I have comfort in knowing that it will become my home, and Los Angeles will become my city once again. So whether I say I'm from LA because I'm in a rush, or I recite my full blown life story, I'll still be telling the truth. I don't really know where I'm from, but it also doesn't really matter. I have so much yet to experience and learn, but whatever life throws at me, I'm that much more prepared to embrace it – by myself, or with whoever's by my side.