Tag Archives: Identity

Princess Megan [sans h]

Saturday, May 19, 2018: It’s 8:00pm EST and I’m eating a generous helping of Caramel Drizzle Cheesecake ice cream out of a coral white bowl. This is what single girls do at 8pm on a Saturday night. 😉

Starting out at 5:00am EST this morning, I nestled up next to my mom with a cuppa tea to watch American Meghan Markle wed European Prince Harry. We used our delicate fine bone china tea cups and floral silver rimmed side plates for our English PG tip tea and biscuit breakfast.

We sized up the fashion of wedding guests; from the fascinators to heels to color choices, we looked on with sheer enjoyment as we ourselves were comfy in our PJs and slippers. I couldn’t help but remember the last Royal Wedding I watched seven years ago and wished my mom was with me then. She was in South Africa and I was in South Carolina. For today’s moment in time, we were both in Michigan.

Today was emotional for several reasons.

Marriage.

I was looking forward to marriage. The timeline was set: engaged this summer, married next summer, engagement events in and between and across two continents.

But I’m not. And I’m not in that relationship anymore.

Today, I was confronted [again] with this reality as I watched the royal wedding. The anticipation, the consideration of the cross-cultural relationship, the diamond ring…..

Royal Wedding.jpeg

I thought about how I was “Princess Megan [sans h]” to him.

Recently, I deleted a google document that contained the images of ring[s] potential I would have liked on my hand, the timeline of different events to happen in the U.S. and in Europe, and some musings of wedding decorations to have at said events. The deleted file has freed up space – both virtual and mental. I’m still working on the emotional.

It’s that Season.

Over the past few weeks, I have been confronted with the reality that more of my university friends, childhood friends, and career friends are announcing engagements, getting married, and having babies.

And now, more confrontational than ever before, I’m in a space of singleness.

Yet today, I was encouraged with a renewed sense of purpose on and for my own timeline. I’m building my own career track and (re)negotiating my own sense of identity as an Adult Third Culture Kid. Why should I allow society, community, family, or friends dictate what it means to live life according to a proverbial “ticking clock.” Why do I permit them so much power sometimes?

It’s been somewhat of a personal challenge over the past few months to feel authentically and fully happy for the engagement, marriage, and baby announcements across my various networks as my own prospect for these life markers seem dimmer and dimmer. Closer networks populate my phone screen with their celebratory announcements: a friend texts me the best photos of her engagement photo shoot, another shares over a skype call that she found out the day before she is pregnant, yet another displays beautiful shots of her wedding events as I scroll through my social media accounts. I simply love their joy and appreciate their willingness to share it with me. They have a radiant spirit of authenticity and of electric happiness as they embark on their new paths with the partners they have chosen.

Love is always a choice.

While my community certainly advocated for and supported my past relationship, I knew in my heart of hearts that I wasn’t being authentic in it. It took some coaching, mentorship, and deep reflection to be honest with myself and to choose myself. And I’m on a journey to completely understand who is this ATCK at 31 years old.

Meghan Markle, 36, met her prince 16 months ago. Over the past year, they have surely discovered both nuanced and overt differences and similarities and mishaps and funhaps of their cross cultural relationship. Surely they will discover more. My own cross-cultural relationship was full of them. Today, I am thrilled for these newly weds. I am inspired by their timeline. I think that when you’re older, you know faster who you want to do life with; who you want as a witness to your life and whose life you want witness. Because you have had time to have a fuller understanding of yourself.

Love is powerful.

“There’s power in love. Don’t underestimate it. Don’t even oversentimentalise it. There’s power – power in love. . . There’s power in love to lift up and liberate when nothing else will.”  – Presiding Bishop Michael B. Curry

As an ATCK now into my thirties, I’m (re)discovering how and why my globally mobile childhood and early adulthood has shaped who I am and if it is who I would like to stay. Today, although a bit sad because of my own sparkly girly dreams shelved, I am confident that I need to continue to lean into myself to believe in greater and better things to come — professionally and personally. Self-love is powerful. Don’t oversentimentalise it. Don’t underestimate it. Simply do it.

Be Thou My Vision, God of Love and Life.

Today, I am confronted with my gratefulness for this time and space and place in life. It is an intersection of rest and growth and cultivation of who and what and where I want to be this summer and next and the non-rush of it all. “Be Thou My Vision” and “Stand By Me” are two of my favorite songs. FAVORITE. And they were played at the Royal Wedding today.

Such a beautiful personal reminder that God gives good gifts to His children. This time in my life is a gift. And so, let me shine my light for God as He stands by me. After all, I am Princess Megan to Him.

Tell it.

“A story is never complete until it is told, heard, and understood.”

As an Adult Third Culture Kid, I have a lot of stories to tell of my global background. Of my safaris, my international school field trips, my advice on luggage, my speaking three languages in one sentence, my definition of home, my favorite restaurant in Tokyo, etc. When I was a K I D moving to another country, I found it a bit easier for others to understand me – and my story/stories. As just another foreigner in the foreign school, I had an understanding that most of my friends had just moved from another country as well…not their passport country necessarily.  We just got each other…as kids do. And we loved each other’s stories. [You bet ‘Show & Tell’ looked a bit different in the international school compared to a homogeneous one].

But now, as an A D U L T, I’m finding that my global stories are not as well received when I tell them to my coworkers, family, or even fellow adult friends.  The stories are considered, sometimes, as bragging and/or exaggerations. Too Exotic. Too unbelievable.  The (non)reaction I perceive and experience has silenced me on more than one occasion and I have downplayed – or even hid – my international upbringing. Sometimes, I don’t mention my TCKness identity in order to fit in with my new community. I don’t want to alienate myself because of jealousy or misunderstanding.  But this is a T R A G E D Y.  People need to hear my stories. Stories of diversity. Stories of adventure. Stories of what has (re)shaped who I am today.  But it takes an effort on my part to (re)frame these stories so they are heard and understood. I can try to link them to a frame of reference or compare them to someone else’s story.  

But not be silent.  

In telling my story, perhaps I can discover someone else who has struggled with reentry into their passport country and we can tell our stories together, or someone else who has felt marginalized as a minority, or someone who has even used a wooden toboggan to sled down a Swiss alp at 10 years old. 

Hey fellow travelers, TCKs, wanderers, nomads, friends: tell your story so it’s heard and understood.