I’ve been lurking off and on for a few months, and have finally decided to take the BIG step. My life story is going to be boring compared to some others, however I need a lolcat, so…

I am Sri Lankan by birth. When I was five, my parents took up teaching positions in Nigeria. For the next eight years we lived on a school campus just south of the Sahara, in a semi-rural town that had a largely Muslim population. I grew up familiar with the fine Saharan sand, and the sound of the Islamic calls to prayer. I can also relate to what Scott said in his intro about desert rain – it’s an awesome feeling! I grew up in an isolated environment, with only one or two expat friends. In that corner of Africa, the school-entry age was quite high, so all my local class-mates were ten to twenty years older than me.

I think moving back ‘home’ was the first time I realised I wasn’t ‘normal’. I felt alienated from my peers. Now I realize this is a common experience, but at the time I felt very much alone. Most of it stemmed from me not understanding the pop culture at school, but the alienation was, I believe, also triggered by my mannerisms and conversational ways that were partly African, and partly very immature (remember, I’d grown up interacting with Africans who were a lot older than me, and only one or two other expat friends). There was another TCK in my class, who had also lived in Africa, but she was not sympathetic at all.

I tried really hard to fit in. It was difficult, but eventually I found a role I could play – that of serious, academic, half-musical teen – and eventually, through some students leaving and new ones coming in, found a sort-of ‘inner circle’.

Leaving Sri Lanka to go to Australia was like an escape. I realize now that Australia has been relatively easy, because I am no longer the hidden immigrant. My skin alone marks me as different. I’m more comfortable being ‘different’ from those around me. People are more likely to excuse me for culturally unacceptable behaviour simply because they think it’s caused by my cultural difference.

When I was introduced to the term Third Culture Kid, it took years to realize this was ME. First I thought I wasn’t one, because TCKs are meant to identify closely with their ’second’ culture, and I don’t. Then I thought I wasn’t one, because I was no longer living in my birth culture. Then I thought the TCK life hadn’t affected me that much, because I saw many others who’d had it a lot tougher – for example, my husband is an MK who went to boarding school. The light-bulb finally came on this year, when I realized I am, simply, an adult third culture kid, with all the rich experience and challenges that brings. The feeling of liberation is indescribable.

I now realize that a lot of my struggles – trying to work out who I am, constantly looking for people to validate me, feeling I don’t belong in social groups, and finding it hard to relate to my peers – are common TCK experiences. I also realize that I need to grieve for my losses – but I keep telling myself that my losses are trivial compared to others (my family, cousins, friends, all the way to the poor orphans in Sudan)! This sounds like denial, doesn’t it?

This site has been an eye-opener. I can’t believe there are so many people out there who share my experiences – both the richness and the challenges. Thanks Brice, Uncle Dan, and all the others. I look forward to getting to know you all.

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