On Being a TCK: Memories and Interpretations

I am lying on a rock, firm, solid, strong

The water around me crashes and swirls, exploding over rocks, roaring in my ears as it races down the mountain.

I can’t hear anything, except for the surging water all around me.

I am looking up, my vision is filled with the deep blue of the endless sky and slow clouds stretching up, floating by. Even though my ears are pulsing with the sound of the river, I feel safe, cradled on the sun-baked rock.

My emotions are a raging torrent; that matches the turmoil of the river around me. They rush around bumping into each other, crashing, spraying out everywhere and filling me with dread that keeps me pressed to my rock haven.

I am sixteen and my life is about to be flipped upside down and bashed inside out.

At home, it’s chaos, piles of things to pack, to give away, to leave, to sell. My life reduced to little scattered mounds of stuff, my history packed up and shipped off to other people.

I’ve said goodbye to my other family. We didn’t just go to school together, I lived with them everyday, 24/7. That’s what happens when you go to boarding school and live insulated in a small community.

Tomorrow, I’ll get my last glimpse of the mountains of my childhood, farewell my holiday friends, close the door on my family home—a home I would come to on the semester breaks, a sanctuary from the busy, outgoing persona I donned for survival while at school. Here I am, me, introverted, part-time loner, able to go all week and not see anyone outside of my family and be content. I can breathe.

Who will I be where we are going?

Will I have a choice?

Next week, I’ll have my last meal at my favourite restaurant, I’ll wave goodbye out of the aeroplane window and watch my world drop beneath me, the lake, the mountain, the jungle, gradually growing smaller until it disappears forever.

Who will I be without my past?

I’m going to a country with strange customs, strange accents, strange foods, big cities filled with millions of people, concrete stretching as far as the eye can see and houses piled upon houses. I will be lost in it all.

How will I ever find myself there?

I press my body into the rock, willing it to swallow me so that I can be forever in this solitary place, this place of comfort and security. This place where I know the rules, I know who I am or at least who I am expected to be.

Who will people expect me to be in my next world?

I slam the door on my thoughts, hold it shut with all my strength and let the firm foundation beneath and the eternal blue above saturate my soul.