Hey guys,

I’ve been away from this site for a looong while now. I’ve explained on another post about this (as a suggestion for improvement to the site), the thing is, I really miss the old tckid design and I still can’t seem to like this one (TCKs can be so stubborn sometimes!)

I’ve been writing a lot on my personal blog cause for some reason I thought it was too personal or “too deep” for tckid. Which can or cannot make sense. I don’t know. Arg, I’m mumbling.

Something very bad has also happened: my mother passed away 1.5 month ago. I had already been going to a therapyst (who, fortunately, knows about TCK) and she’s been helping me get through the grief (ie, not delay the grief like I have done with my childhood TCK-related hidden losses). She also gave me a very interesting insight that I would like to share with you guys (although I’m not sure if it applies to everyone): the way I relate (ie complain) about my “home” country is the way I related to my mother.

At first I thought it didn’t make much sense but now I see she was right. My complains about Brazil and how people here don’t care about each other and about me, the way my school teachers here weren’t mindful to my social challenges upon repatriating, etc can all be applied to my mother, in the sense that all I wanted was to have her comfort me, give me her shoulder so that I could cry on it when I was feeling like a foreigner in this country. But I did not have the words to express that at that time and she did not know about TCK. So I’m still trying to mend this inside me somehow, but I wanted to share it with you guys in case it helps someone else.

Another suggestion that I also made to improve the site was to be able to RSS my blog into here, because really, I have learned so much since I sort of stayed away from tckid. And even if what I write is ultra-personal, I think it still could be of help to other people. Arg, I don’t know. You tell me.

By the way, the address is http://mairabay.multiply.com/journal

Now to the belonging part. What I wanted to say (and that I have said on another blog post here) is that I found my sense of belonging in my “home” town by hanging out with foreigners and cross-cultural people like me. I participate in two language conversation practice groups (one for French and one for English). This is another advise that I would like to give to TCKs who are feeling lonely: search for language groups or any other kind of group where you’d typically find foreigners or people whom are interested in other langauges and cultures. These are the places where we will find people with whom we’ll feel more “at home”.

Also, very recently I’ve been going with an American friend of mine to a golf club (he’s teaching me to play it!). This sport is very un-mainstream in Brazil, so most of the people who go there are foreigners. I have already heard people speaking English (American AND British), French and Spanish there. I feel really at home when I’m in an environment like that. So here’s another tip: look for a sport that is non-mainstream, so that you will automatically hang out with non-mainstream people. TCKs tend to feel more comfortable in the margins of society (I never get tired of quoting this article from Barbara Schaetti: http://www.transition-dynamics.com/phoenix.html).

Ok, I hope my post for today helps someone, that’s all I ask.

Take care everyone!

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