“If you were to write an autobiography, what would you call it?”
“The trip home.”
Many times, growing up you felt disconnected from society, your relatives, your own family. It was as though you walked inside one of those giant bubble balls, and every time you reached out to connect with someone, you couldn’t.
Because of the word “too”…
You were always “too” something…
Too talkative…
Too quiet…
Too moody (explains the previous two)…
Too emotional…
Too stubborn…
Too opinionated…
You read too much…
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“When are you going to see your family. It’s been ages, ” your friend asks recently.
You still remember the days when you used to walk with your mother to the call box in your neighborhood in Abu Dhabi so she would call back home.
Did you notice how that generation still speaks loudly when they make international calls on their mobile phones?
“I swear, technology has advanced. They can hear you.”
They’re still wired that way.
But you digress.
When you live abroad, you romanticize the concept of family. You think of how awesome life would be when you have your extended family around. The big and boisterous Iftar dinners where you don’t break for Maghrib prayers after having water and dates because you don’t know if there will be any Chapati left once you’re back.
Ten years and this is going to be your first Ramadan totally alone.
In a country that’s supposedly called ‘home’.
Where you have family around.
What makes you laugh (not really) is how when you’re away, all these people call to ask, “When are you coming? We miss you.”
Now you live in the same city and the same people don’t bother to check if you’re even alive.
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Your whole life you’ve struggled with belonging. To actually grow up in a world that not only doesn’t understand you but doesn’t even try. A world that keeps on telling you over and over again about how you need to fit a certain mold to be accepted…to be validated.
One day, a stranger joined your family. Raised in Saudi Arabia by Mombasa-based parents, she fit the model of what a “Mombasa girl” was supposed to be like and you saw your parents accept her immediately…if you were to use an expression, it might have been “like the daughter they never had…”
A couple of months later, you were sucked into the black hole of depression. The year was 2009 and your days became a cycle of commuting to work, working, crying and sleeping.
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The very first conversation your mother had with you when you landed in Kenya after 3 decades abroad was this, “You have to reintegrate with our society. You can no longer use ‘being away’ as an excuse. You are not special.”
But the fact was you were.
You are special.
You’re the poster child of a “Third Culture” kid.
At 18, you left your parents’ house and never truly returned.
You’ve read enough books and interacted with enough different people to make sure your worldview is different.
No, she’s wrong.
You are special.
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“Where is home for you?” You often get asked.
You don’t know.
That’s why your autobiography would be called, “The trip home.”