Lost

I’m five years old. They ask me where I’m from. I don’t know. As a five year old girl, I didn’t know where I came from -- my roots, my ancestors, and my birthplace were all unknown. Other kids knew their homeland, they had all the answers that I didn’t. So I stood in front of them trying to think of an answer, an answer that would satisfy their question. But instead my mind went blank, a black chalkboard with no words or drawings. Like a dog being scolded for peeing on the brand new overpriced carpet, I stood still, didn’t make a move. I had nothing to say. They must have looked at me weird or thought I was foreign. I mean how could someone not know where they are from, right? It seems strange that I didn’t have an answer to one of life’s most simple questions. Where are you from? Do you know the answer to that question? Possibly. Maybe you know because you’ve asked your parents one day after school like I did, or maybe you know because you’ve lived in one place your entire life so that must be where you are from, or maybe you’ve seen the country you were born in on your passport. So perhaps you do know where you are from. That country or city cannot tell you who you are. Who are you? See, you can’t answer that so easily can you? I’m sure your name was the first thing that came to mind, but does that define who you are? You don’t know.

I didn’t know either. I didn’t know who I was and perhaps I still don’t. I was a young girl from Gdynia, Poland in the midst of American citizens who considered me one of them. Me a citizen? I was honored, maybe even prideful in a country that I had not been born in. Citizen. Sure I was an inhabitant of New York, but I was born in Poland, after all I was truly a Polish citizen. My passport told me so.

Without knowing a concrete answer to the question I was asked as a five year old girl, I finally thought of something, an answer that I thought would amuse them, an answer that would refrain them from asking any other questions. Putting my uneasiness aside, I finally said,

“Why does it matter?”

“Well because, we want to see if you’re one of us”.

They paused after delivering their intrusive answer and I was left speechless. It was as if they were a group of robots who were so fixated on their own little clique that they could not be open to someone who wasn’t like them. Five year old girls had already formed a posse, one that I couldn’t relate to, not only because I wasn’t from the Big Apple, but because I couldn’t even explain where I was from. I was an outcast and stranger in a country that I wanted to belong in. As a young girl I wanted to be like just like them, an American native. Now, I want to be everything that they weren’t.

Found

I've been looking for something I cannot find. I'm a Brooklyn native. I'm a tourist in Times Square, Manhattan. I'm a college student at Marist University. I am many things, so when they ask me, "Where are you from"?, I cannot give them just one answer. All the places I have been, have made me who I am. In Gdynia Poland, I was a girl from the Baltic Sea -- my Pisces horoscope matched my lifestyle. In Bensonhurst, Brookyln I was a beach babe -- my feet always buried deep under the Coney Island sand. Manhattan was a place where I always felt like a tourist, no matter how many times I had taken the M train to 42st Bryant Park.Times Square will always be a magical kingdom -- flashing lights, cameras and people of all different cultures. If I stand in the midst of all the tourists in front of the M&M Factory, I feel like one of them. If I stand on the corner of the street, I feel like I am further away from them. I've been to Poland once since I was born there and visiting was nothing like living in New York. Coming out of the airport, everything felt smaller and calmer, but I instantly felt like I was back home. The pizza was different, the parking regulations were different and the people were different. But after three weeks, I missed New York - my home away from home. So maybe I've always had an answer to the question I was asked as a five year old girl, Where are you from? Maybe I've crafted the answer as my life went on.

Thirteen years later they ask me who I am. I have my answer. I'm a Polish - American girl who knows her home.