TCK stands for Third Culture Kid. But my article has less to do with what growing up in Brazil made adolescence like and more to do with the valuable lessons my friends have taught me about home, transition and life.
After my freshman year of college, I had collided in beautiful ways with many other people's stories and life journeys. My appreciation for the conversations which sparked from "Where are you from?" only increased when I studied abroad in the UK fall semester of sophomore year. After seeing people in transition, sitting with solitude and talking with locals I changed my question to: "Where is home for you?" And even if I'm answered with a small laugh, an uncertain smile or a "It's a long story" I say: "I'm willing to hear it." For my dear friends who have grown up in the Czech Republic, Mexico and Israel (to name a few) home is a shifting space. The place they grew up is home because childhood memory is rooted there. The place where they spent the majority of their elementary and secondary school years is home for the formative relationship between place and education. Home is also where the people you love most reside. My TCK friends have taught me home is is a concept to be cherished and also never taken for granted. Because my friends have had multiple conceptions of 'home', they have learned how to make home wherever they are. The work of making a home is hard enough if you've moved, but imagine doing it over and over again never knowing how long the home you have built will last.
With all the moves, the mental, emotional, and physical work of transition is all the more raw and essential. I have moved once in my life: I was eight years old and it was really hard. But, my TCK friends have moved across countries and across time zones. It is to my TCK friends I ask advice about saying goodbye (even though I don't want to say goodbye to them). It is to my TCK friends I talk to about what transitioning strong looks like. My TCK friends have expansive memories that are head-strong and full of heart. My friends have taught me that transition is a necessary part of life: no one is meant to stand still, and walking forward with hope is the best way to turn the page of a new life chapter.
Friendships are tough when they are all over the world. I once tried to articulate this concept by describing a bunch of string going from one place and radiating all over a map. My TCK friends live in many worlds, for in each place is a relationship where its own memories, its own places, and its own ways-of-being exist. They don't just miss the person; they miss the world the person is in. They have taught me how to ask meaningful questions, how to reflect on the seemingly mundane and make time for the people that matter.
No one has seen life quite like a TCK and it is for that reason their pilgrim ways are so important in communities. They have insights on the insights of new angles to any one question. They consider the people and carefully share their experiences in a modest, but inquiring way. They know life happens harder and in a more beautiful way. Perhaps they have felt life's uncertainties more, but their heart capacity for empathy is larger than many other people that I know.
To my TCK friends: you are all made of some kind of beautiful strong cloth that has weathered much and covered many. I hope you keep spreading beauty, insight and love wherever you go. Fare Forward!
