Belonging nowhere but also everywhere

Looking for Home as a TCK

How do I unlock this feeling of “Belonging”?

“When you realise you belong no place, you belong every place”.

Maya Angelou

This famous quote of Maya Angelou kept sticking with me after I read it for the first time. It’s so simple to interpret, yet so hard to grasp because of its paradoxical nature. How can you belong to every place and no place at the same time? It is contradictory but if you let this quote float in your head for some time, you might come to a similar conclusion that I came to – which is:

If you understand and accept where and who you truly are as a person at the time being, if you can be your most authentic self all the time – then you will have no issue of belonging. 

Again so simple, yet complicated. Especially as a TCK (Third Culture Kid) where you may find yourself struggling with this process of self-identification and stability throughout life.

TCK’s are born and live in a different culture their parents come from. They grow up between two or more worlds, which often makes them experience different expectations – as they try to fit equally in every place. But that is easier said than done.
I am a TCK – born in the center of Europe in Germany although both my parents are from a tiny country in the middle east called Lebanon, with a completely different culture and language.

Thinking back, I always wanted to fit in with any German friends I made, but I also didn’t want to “betray” my parents who raised me in a traditional middle eastern & islamic way which was pretty much a completely opposite way of living.
Which is why my heart always ached for the feeling of belonging and the desire to exist in both worlds.

It all started with me being ashamed in kindergarten of bringing a slice of “zaatar and labneh” with me, because it is the classic Lebanese breakfast, but no other kid knew what it was. 

Kids being kids, they were likely just curious to see and smell something they never ate, but it only takes 1 curious kid to make you feel “weird” about some part of yourself, especially in a time of life where you do not want to stand out or be unique in any way. As a kid, you do not care about being an individual really, all you care about is finding as many other kids as you can to play with!

But back in elementary school – you don’t have a lot of choice on who you want to surround yourself with. Since the internet was not big back then and sending SMS was too expensive either, it all came down to making connections with the other children around you, or otherwise you would end up having to play catch with yourself.
The 10 year old me feeling lucky that he figured out how to play catch with others, remembers his German friends and the local community he grew up in pretty vividly.

I remember always trying to be the one that made the others laugh, even if it meant they made fun of me and my middle eastern culture. The sacrifice was worth it because I thought I would not only fit in better by not being something that was not represented in the present moment but also by de-valuing it to some extent, to double down and hoping to fade in to everyone around me.

Another situation that crosses my mind often is that deep urge to not want to go to a party of a friend because everyone was getting drunk and I was always the one who was sober because of their beliefs and the way I was raised.

So in some sense, me figuring out how to play catch with others, made me also ignore catching up with myself for some years.
The older I grew, the more time I spent with myself, the more catch up I had to do and eventually I attended less parties and found myself like becoming more and more an introvert.

The feeling of being a refugee to the country and culture you were born and taught about, with the big question of where you actually belong.
It’s trivial situations like these that not only teach you people skills, but also make you question your sense of belonging every time because you have no clear definition of your own identity.

You’re putting in extra efforts to be out there but you are also trying to cope with everyone else being unconsciously their most authentic self, while you yourself have to masquerade your true self so that you can say you were there, you didn’t miss out, you were part of it. But were you actually a part of it if you never felt like yourself being there?

Then I got to visit the other half of my culture, Lebanon, the country of my parents in the middle east for the first time. At first it seems like you blend in perfectly. You look kind of the same, people love eating the same breakfast you were eating all the time, but once you start speaking, everyone hears your foreign accent and they will immediately let you know about it.

“Do you know what a foreign accent is? – It’s a sign of bravery.“

Amy Chua

Bringing this up, really fascinates me how the sense of belonging can start from everywhere, even if it just means that you bring food with you that looks different (or similar) to what everyone else is eating around you or if you pronounce the same words just in a slightly different way.

Those patterns of me catching myself trying to fit in for others while ignoring myself kept recurring and they still do sometime today as I write this, as a grown up 26 year old adult. The only difference today is that I try to catch myself every time I feel like I’m not being authentic so that I really represent and more importantly be myself no matter the situation.

It took me a while to acknowledge that keeping my individuality while looking for the feeling of belonging AND a community with shared values, was a path that didn’t exist in my world. So I had to create this “individual community” for myself – with the people I choose to be around me.

Today I am in the clear about myself and realise that this is exactly where I need to be, at all stages of life. Simply myself. 

I now know for myself that I will never belong to only one place or culture. 

I belong to the place I’m feeling good at.

I belong around the people I feel good around. 

Just like Maya,
I belong everywhere and no place at the same time
and that conclusion fits me best.