OCTOBER 2021
AMONG WORLDS
Vol. 21 | No. 3
Relationships
Contents
Editor’s Letter Relationships
Old Souls Rebecca Hopkins
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Dream Half a World Away Andrew Mobley
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Distance Grandparent/ Grandchild Relationships: A Slow-Cooker Metaphor Helen Ellis, M.A.
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Three Years Later: A Letter Elizabeth Hemp
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Friends of the Road & Friends for a Lifetime Jamey Lewis
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Third Culture Kids in Quarantine: Adaptability and Purpose Esther C. Tan
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To My New Friends Hannah Mathews
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Spotlight Interview: Lauren Wells
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Tumaini Melanie Han
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Friendship Interrupted Katha von Dessien
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On the Outskirts (micro-essay) Ibtihal Ahmed
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October 2021 • Vol. 21 • No. 3 Cover Photo by Gabriella Clare Marino (Unsplash) Editor: Rachel Hicks Copy Editor: Pat Adams Graphic Designer: Kelly Pickering Digital Publishing: Bret Taylor
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Sticky. Complicated. Glorious. Messy. Exhilarating. Necessary. What word associations arise in your mind when you hear the word relationships? For TCKs, that list might include words like goodbye, departure lounge, global, social media, distance, and exhausting. As if relationships weren’t complicated enough, TCK relationships include an extra layer of complexity: • How do we know which relationships to nurture and which to release? • Is it worth reconnecting to that old friend from several countries (and lifetimes) ago? • How do I learn to trust this person and enjoy this relationship (when I’m so used to leaving or being left)? • How do I build a relationship with my grandparents/relatives who don’t understand my TCK life experiences? • My identity feels so fractured—does this friend even know the real me? (Do I?) • Who are my people? We asked you to talk to us about TCKs and relationships, and the submissions we received reveal a beautiful and bittersweet mosaic. One theme that emerged from several contributors is the comfort of friends who are old souls—friends to whom we don’t have to explain ourselves, who know us deeply and let us be our kaleidoscopic selves. One consequence of COVID-19 isolation is that some of us have taken time to consider who our old soul friends really are.
Among Worlds is on Instagram! Follow us at amongworlds. The mission of Among Worlds is to encourage adult TCKs and other global nomads by addressing real needs through relevant issues, topics, and resources.
I wasn’t surprised to receive several submissions of poetry—that spare language of the heart that can speak volumes.
have the blessing of experiencing the “normalcy” of parents who live nearby—something that I’m sure many people take for granted.
And it was helpful to me as a TCK raising TCKs to read Helen Ellis’s article on “Distance Grandparent/ Grandchild Relationships.” The questions she raises and advice she gives open a space for reflection on all of our distance relationships and encourage us to recommit to nurturing far-flung family relationships. I thought about my own grandmother (96 years young now and a former missionary in Southeast Asia and Papua) who learned how to use Skype, then FaceTime, so she could build a relationship with my TCK children—her greatgrandchildren—across the world.
“ The submissions we received reveal a beautiful and bittersweet mosaic.” Our Spotlight feature guest in this issue is somewhat of an expert on relationships. Lauren Wells is an author of several books and the founder and director of TCK Training, an organization whose mission is “to come alongside parents and sending entities for the purpose of equipping, encouraging, and empowering them to raise up healthy Third Culture Kids.” Lauren is no stranger to Among Worlds, having written for us in the past. We were pleased to get to know her a little better, and are happy to introduce her and her organization to you. Happy reading!
Rachel Rachel (TCK), grandmother Elaine (TCA), husband Jim (TCA), and daughter Jackie (TCK) Speaking of family, my TCK parents just moved to the city where I live with my family. Since I left home for college at age eighteen, I have never lived in the same location as my parents—and often we’ve been countries apart! As lifelong global nomads, they are currently dealing with a somewhat rocky “re-entry” or “repatriation” at the same time as we’re all trying to figure out things like How often should we get together and share a meal? Am I bugging them if I call or text again today? Are they going to get sick of seeing us so often? It’s a new season in our relationship, and I’m thrilled to
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“If I get to be me, I belong. If I have to be like you, I fit in.”
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Old Souls
By Rebecca Hopkins
I
had to use the GPS on my car to get me back to my friend’s house in a part of Colorado Springs that wasn’t familiar to me. Stay right, I reminded myself while I drove. I was just a few months into a US visit after twelve years living in Indonesia—where we drive on the left-hand side of the road. And I sometimes got confused about where I was supposed to be. Rosalynn’s garden was gorgeous, surrounding me with its life and color and hope as I walked up to her front door. I reminded myself to notice, to take it in, to lay down some burdens and just breathe. It had been a few years since I’d been there, and when Rosalynn welcomed me into her home, I wondered if this was a different house than when I’d last visited. “We painted it, did some redecorating,” she explained when I asked her. “But same house.” Right. Of course. My friend is no longer living the highly mobile, Army-brat life we shared in our childhood. She hasn’t moved in years. I sat down and tried to remember what the color of the walls used to be. No idea. But I do remember eating her mom’s amazing Filipino egg rolls during the last visit. They were the same recipe her mom made for me in her ArmyMarch 2021 October 2021 42 4
issued kitchen two decades ago. At that time, her kitchen looked almost identical to my own family’s Army-issued kitchen. We lived just a block away from each other during the couple of high school years my friend and I shared in the 1990s at Fort Drum, New York. It had been too many years since I’d eaten her mom’s cooking. I was the one who left that shared neighborhood first—moving from New York to Colorado as a junior in high school. A couple of years later, Rosalynn graduated from that first high school of ours, then followed her family to Colorado, too. It’s pretty amazing both our families ended up in the same town. Most of my past childhood friends now live all over the place. And while we may have shared one of our childhood homes, it’s rare to share more than one, especially at the same time.
Rebecca and her friend, Rosalynn Ioapo.
“I’m sorry it’s been so long since I’ve visited,” I said to her.
I was sorry for other things, too—sorry for leaving her halfway through a high school that often bullied the diverse bunch of kids from all over. And I was sorry for very rarely living in But then I kept moving—from Colorado to Colorado at the same time she did. And I wished Pennsylvania for college, then to Washington, I’d done better at keeping in touch. Friends D.C. for a newspaper internship, then to Texas to get married and work as a reporter, then to a mean the world to me, but when the world separates us, I often lose touch and then carry tiny bush village in interior Alaska, and then to Indonesia, where I lived on three different islands. shame that I’ve somehow failed them. But I didn’t feel too sorry for moving to other special places. It’s what I tend to do. I keep going and enjoy where I am and try not to look back for long at the loss. But I was glad, in this case, that I had looked back. Significantly, I felt safe with her in her home with the garden out front. I’d spent the last few years living on the other side of the world from Rosalynn (and ironically eating similar-to-Filipino foods in my Indonesian home). They’ve been rich years filled with new friends and new languages and new nighttime equatorial skies. I love the journey—the discovery, the mystery, the growth, the people I’ve met along the way. Also, I’ve become a mom—three times over—which has shown 5
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me new sides of myself. It has shown me new limitations, but also new capacities for strength. I loved the adventure, purpose, and challenges of our cross-cultural, overseas life. But the past year or so in my Indonesian home, though, had really hurt. Life had become filled with trauma, loss and confusion. Though I’d tried again and again to muster more resilience, I was nearly out of courage to live the latest set of circumstances. And on that day during a visit to Colorado I was feeling lost. In many ways, life—the world, God, me—had stopped making sense to me. And that’s a scary place to be.
On that day in Colorado, Rosalynn and I caught up on our missing years. We chatted about our families—how our siblings and parents were doing, what jobs had come and gone, sicknesses, surgeries, marriages, kids. And then we asked each other questions about all the places from our lives.
Where were all the places we had both lived growing up? She was born in Germany. I was born in Hawaii. We figured out we had both lived in Georgia at the same time—but on two different Army posts. She’d been to the pink Army hospital where I was born and could describe it to me (because she lived in Hawaii many years after I’d moved from there). But I’ve never been back Most of the time when I visited the States on to see the hospital myself. We both lived in these breaks, I hoped for some good food, some many other places that we didn’t exactly share, family time, some rest, a change of seasons, but certainly shared cultural elements that we reconnecting with people. And then I’d go back to understood—military ID cards given at age ten, my life, food, friends, house, and stuff in Indonesia. national anthems played before the movie starts at the base theater, new next-door neighbors This visit, though, I needed more. who have just arrived from Korea or Germany or Singapore. We both know what it’s like to never Missing my “places,” finding my tribe be “from” somewhere, to instead always have just “moved from” somewhere. I wonder what your memory of time looks like. Do you remember your childhood in years? Or grades? Events maybe? I remember mine as places. The time I lived in Kentucky on a road called Mississippi Avenue across the street from my Singaporean friend named Jocelyn. The time I lived in Kansas when I had an imaginary friend who was a dinosaur (who ate clouds on gloomy days). The time I lived in Virginia with the woods behind my house, when my baby brother was born.
“ We laughed together at that
one like it was an inside joke— at her American-cultured, Filipino/Samoan-parented, German-born (but not Germanspeaking) identity.”
How we met? That one’s easy. We met at the bus stop on the Army post where we lived a block apart, both on streets named after generals. We were waiting to be carried off to the off-post, rural, mostly culturally and racially homogenous school. Many at that school didn’t seem to understand these Army kids who looked different, had different stories, had just moved from different places all over the world. My friend and I sat next to each other on that bus on the most frigid of northern New York mornings and in PE class when the girl bully taunted us both and in our Army chapel pew when we were trying to figure out God with our teenage-sized questions. “Weird” anomalies in our lives? I learned that Rosalynn’s dad isn’t from a Filipino background like I’d always thought (her mom is Filipino,
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dad Samoan—both are US citizens). Rosalynn, though, is technically a German citizen, because that’s where her parents were stationed, representing the US Army, when she was born. She’s been trying to become a US citizen for years, but it’s not been easy. We laughed together at that one like it was an inside joke—at her American-cultured, Filipino/ Samoan-parented, German-born (but not German-speaking) identity. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, of course. And yet, to me, it makes perfect sense. It was then that I remembered how very much my friend is “my people.” Rosalynn’s diversity creates such a unique story. I’m only touching the surface of who she is, how much richness she adds to this world. And she lives it with courage and grace. I, like many other third culture kids around the world, look like I fit into the majority-white culture here in the States. And yet, with my highly mobile, diverse childhood, and after spending most of my adult years in Indonesia, I feel less “American” than ever. Identity has become a bit complicated for me. I was already struggling with feeling like the world didn’t make sense anymore due to the recent trauma we’d experienced. That was added on top of what felt like a life-long wondering if I made sense anywhere.
Ruth van Reken and Paulette Bethel call this a hidden diversity, defining it as “a diversity of experience that shapes a person’s life and worldview but is not readily apparent on the outside, unlike the usual diversity markers such as race, ethnicity, nationality, and so forth” (Bethel, 2003). It can be isolating, creating what Janet Bennett called “terminal uniqueness,” which, in simple terms, means being too different from those around us (Bennett, 1993). We humans are, in fact, all unique, and yet we are meant to be connected to others in a meaningful way. Those meaningful, lasting connections can be difficult to grasp for someone who has moved constantly as a child. But being able to have this conversation with my friend on that Colorado visit—about identity confusion and mobility in childhood and how we coped using kind, accepting friendship as one of our healthiest tools—gave me a haven that day. It reminded me of the pieces—and the people—that did make sense to me: the pursuit of friendship, the power of empathy, and the grace of God for the brokenness around us. And that’s when I realized that one way I find “home” is to find an old soul—a friend who shares her unique story with me and lets me share mine with her, with acceptance, empathy, and openness. And my memories aren’t just marked by a diversity of places. They’re about people I love, and who have graciously kept loving me no matter where I live for the moment. Researcher and writer Brené Brown interviewed eighth graders to discuss true belonging for her book Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone. This is what they came up with: “If I get to be me, I belong. If I have to be like you, I fit in.”
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References: Bennett, J. (1993). “Cultural Marginality: Identity Issues in Global Leadership Training.” In R. M. Paige, Education for the Intercultural Experience. Yarmouth, Maine: Intercultural Press.
Rebecca Hopkins spent the first half of her life moving around as an Army kid and the past fourteen years trying to grow roots on three different Indonesian islands while her husband took to the skies as a pilot. She now works in Colorado for Paraclete Mission Group and writes about issues related to non-profit and crosscultural work. Website: www.rebeccahopkins.org
Bethel, R. E. (2003). “Third Culture Kids and Curriculum Issues in the International School System: Recognizing (and Dealing Effectively with) the Hidden Diversity of Third Culture Kids (TCKs).” Comparative and International Education Society. New Orleans, Louisiana.
Dream Hal World Aw
Andrew Mobley may be living proof that the supposedly mind-broadening effects of travel are ultimately limited. He has lived in China, Indonesia, Taiwan, Laos, and the United States of America. http://advocate.jbu.edu/author/mobleyai/
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lf a way
By Andrew Mobley I’m afraid of forgetting your face Your smile so rare All I have of you is a ghostly cold, spring warm trace Written on my soul to tear I’m afraid of the fading of your gentle voice That once swept over my weary heart like a cool breeze That in my darkness gave me cause to rejoice That to my rusted doors were keys Now we’re gone Half a world away with only whispers The wind upon And the cherry tree withers Losing its grip on its fruit Watching as they slip through its gnarled fingers in winter bare Helplessly falling to the barren root There is no fruit so sweet that left such a bitter taste But I see the coming spring And I know what the waters of Marah bring Life again, that was and is to come I’m afraid of myself and my war With or without your gentle touch That I once and never felt before Because now what is my love was once our crutch The lonesome bitter breeze reminds me Of the love once forgotten flowing through my ancient veins Oh that I could have seen, that you could now see The ills we needlessly bear, our shackles, our chains We sang each other’s names half a world away And now alone I want to scream For God to turn numb night into obliterating day And restore the gentle, unsallied dream
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Distance Grandparent/ Grandchild Relationships: A Slow-Cooker Metaphor By Helen Ellis, M.A. Editor’s Note: The following article is an edited excerpt from Being a Distance Grandparent: A Book for ALL Generations by Helen Ellis (Summertime Publishing). While the intended audience is the “Distance Grandparent,” there are helpful principles here for adult TCKs raising TCKs. This article gives adult TCKs a perspective we need to understand in order to foster closer relationships with our parents and grandparents who live far away from us.
sown. Or, to use another metaphor, the dinner is cooking—it’s just in a slow cooker. Little things stick with children and later they remember and utter a random comment about something that happened years ago…and it blows you away. The last time my six-year-old grandson visited my home he was under two. However, he will still occasionally say “I remember your house” and describe a feature or two.
istance Grandparents” are often troubled by the question of how to foster strong relationships with their grandchildren who live far away. They want to build bonds. They want to be close to all their grandchildren, but there are obstacles between some.
A couple of factors definitely affect Distance Grandparent/Grandchild bonds and relationships:
D
As explained by Distance Grandmother Kathryn, “When the grandchildren were very young, between birth and two years, I was this strange woman who appeared for two weeks a year.”* Kathryn’s experiences are normal. Sometimes, in the early years, you wonder if you are making any impact with your video calls, parcels in the mail, and visits. Please be assured seeds are being
• Were the grandchildren born in the same country as the Distance Grandparents and do they remember your home and you? Or, was the grandchild born overseas with little understanding or connection to your home/ country? • Does your Distance Son or Daughter (and partner) encourage and initiate all variety of connections with you? Are they intentional about this task? Do they speak well of you within the confines of their home…or do you have a gatekeeper scenario (in which they “guard” or limit access to you?
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Both these factors matter and affect the level of bonding that can be achieved between grandparents and their Distance Grandchildren. On our last visit to the States, our then four-yearold grandson was given an opportunity to stay with us in our Airbnb next door to his parent. He was used to sleeping in different homes, as his mum and dad co-parent. We chatted about this adventure and he was all for it. However, when it came time for lights out, a little voice whispered he wanted to go home. He knew us—we weren’t strangers—but this was all too foreign for him. We weren’t upset. We got it. Maybe next time?
connection to your home country, while others will always consider it a distant place. Distance Grandparents who have more than one grandchild overseas will likely already notice a closeness, for no particular reason, with some grandkids and not others…and that’s okay. So remember, Distance Grandparent/Grandchild relationships take time to develop, just like a casserole in a slow cooker. Never give up, never feel what you are doing is a waste of time—just be patient, accepting what it is, and make the most of what you have. *Gosling, P & Huscroft, A. How To Be a Global Grandparent. Zodiac Publishing UK Ltd., 2009.
“Distance Grandparent/
Grandchild relationships take time to develop, just like a casserole in a slow cooker.”
My message here is Distance Grandparents need to accept, earlier rather than later, they will rarely have the same type of connection with their Distance Grandchildren as they have with those who are in-country, who sleep over and know every nook and cranny of your house. However, what you do develop with the overseas grandkids will brim with unique experiences and memories and still mean a lot to your grandchildren. One other grandparent/grandchild relationship factor must not be overlooked when we focus on the overarching topics like globalisation, mobility, and distance familying: Kids are kids! Grandchildren the world over do not turn out the same. Some are drawn to developing a close relationship with their grandparents, while others are more matter-of-fact about it all. It is no reflection on their upbringing, or on you. Some children are inspired to keep in touch with Nana and Grandad, while others are not. Likewise, children go through phases of who and what are important to them. Some will experience a closer 13
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Helen Ellis M.A. is a New Zealand researcher, author, anthropologist, veteran of Distance Grandparenting, and the Founder of DistanceFamilies.com. Three of her four children and four of her six grandchildren live 16 to 30 flight hours away in America and England. Her book Being a Distance Grandparent: A Book for ALL Generations combines that experience with her extensive global research. This is the first of a threebook series about Distance Families—each publication focusing on a different generation (grandparents, sons and daughters, and grandchildren). www.distancefamilies.com @helenellis.author https://www.facebook.com/DistanceFamilies https://www.facebook.com/groups/distancegrandparent www.linkedin.com/in/helen-ellis-02590a16
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Three Years Later: A Letter
By Elizabeth Hemp
To Enya
I
met you in a different country than the one you call home. It was your second time going there, but my first, and I spent the whole trip trying not to compare my experiences to anyone else’s. You didn’t know anything about that, not then. Afterwards, we came back to your homeland, where I also lived, and suddenly, somehow, we were in a friend group. We hung out every day with Alicia, and your mother called us The Three Amigos, and I discovered being friends the American way involves copious amounts of food. That was the beginning. In the middle you realized you liked me, and I realized I liked you, and everyone else thought it was an easy choice for us to start dating. They only thought that because they didn’t see my utter terror at the prospect of being tied down to a single place, trapped in a relationship that had the potential of being part of a forever small story. Nobody else thought of it that way, especially not you. When I tried to explain, you just looked sad. I remember how we lay on the hood of your car, warm metal under our skin, and we stared up into the evening sky while you asked me to please stay. I held your hand that night, but I didn’t make any promises. Three months into our dating relationship, my heartland was lost to me. My parents decided to change continents, so we all went back one last time to pack up and say goodbye to the country we had loved for seventeen years, and 15
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you went too. To this day, I still don’t know why you agreed to go. But you did, and in our third country together you spent ten days drowning in the flood of my memories, holding my hand while I sobbed about things I couldn’t even hope to put into words. You were gentle, steady, calm, and kind. You were my stability in that time, the one piece of my life that stood still and was predictable. Even if I lost everything else (and it felt like I did), I knew you would still love me.
“ I didn’t know how to be loved, or how to stay, or how to be tethered to such a small story. You didn’t know how to wait for someone who was so clearly lost.” That trip with you changed my life. You entered into the complexity of my identity, held the shattered pieces of my history, and loved me all the same. You saw the things I had sworn to never let anyone see; you took all of my complicated emotions and held them with gentleness. You taught me it was okay to be myself. You were able to engage my history and my present simultaneously, acknowledging both as valid. No one had ever shown me that before, and even if they had, I wouldn’t have believed them. But because it was you, I believed it. There will never be enough words to make you understand what a precious gift that time with you was.
But I, of all people, know nothing lasts forever. Even the best times have an end, and in our case the best times became difficult times rather quickly. We didn’t understand each other anymore. I didn’t know how to be loved, or how to stay, or how to be tethered to such a small story. You didn’t know how to wait for someone who was so clearly lost. I went places in my mind where you couldn’t go, and I left you behind. We both said sorry, a lot of times. It wasn’t good enough.
And so it culminated on a frosty winter night, with you and me holding cups of hot chocolate in a diner, saying words we had never imagined we would say. It is the curse of a third culture kid to know how to leave. In fact, I know how to leave even before I’ve left. I call it TCK Syndrome, the ability to let go and move on to the future before the present has even finished. Sometimes it feels like a gift, but mostly it just feels inevitable. That night after you drove away, I stayed and kicked some snow in the parking lot. I screamed at the stars. I cried. I tried to be angry at you. I tried to be angry at myself. I tried to make sense out of everything. Mostly I packed up all the memories, shoved them into the attic with all the rest, and stored them safely for myself to remember later. I knew it was over.
Three days later I sat in my car watching the rain, staring blankly in the direction of your house. Three miles. The engine hummed quietly beneath me, headlights beaming into the darkness of the parking lot, and I kept my hands off the steering wheel. Three miles. Three minutes. Somehow, the distance was an uncrossable divide and I knew I would never make it any closer than that empty parking lot—not then, not ever again. So, I clenched my fists quietly in my lap and saw the memory of your tears as soft as the raindrops on the windshield, as tragic as my own tears dripping down onto the plastic seat. Three miles. Three days. Three words we would never say again. I whispered them into the darkness of the rain, and let you go. It’s been three years now, and I’ve had three other relationships. Three other people I thought might last forever, three other people I have left behind. I’ve been to therapy. I’ve figured a lot of stuff out, and there is still a lot more I haven’t figured out. I’ve realized that my TCK Syndrome isn’t as impenetrable as I always thought it was. I’ve realized that I still miss you, even though I know you’re gone and you’ve moved on. I’ve realized I still miss a lot of people. And I know I’ve said sorry before, and that you already know pretty much everything I’ve written here, but I still want to say this again—thank you. Thank you for the time we had together, for the lessons you taught me, for the ways you loved me well. Maybe someday I will truly let you go, or maybe I won’t, but either way I am a better person for having known you. I definitely don’t regret it. Elizabeth Hemp grew up in West Africa and North America. She currently resides in a small community in Pennsylvania and satisfies the travel bug by leaving the country at least once a year.
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Friends of the Road and Friends for a Lifetime By Jamey Lewis
I
was eighteen years old. I had made the flight across the Pacific from Indonesia back to the US on my own. I landed at LAX International Airport and was met by my sister and brother-inlaw. For the next three weeks, I stayed with my brother-in-law’s parents. They were very kind, but I hardly knew them. On college orientation day I was dropped off on campus by my brotherin-law’s mother. The college sophomore who was helping at orientation thought she was my grandmother. Good grief, I thought. I’m not even going to try to correct her. I kept my TCK identity tucked away. It is not uncommon for young adult TCKs and other cross-cultural kids (CCKs) to keep their cross-cultural identity hidden as they face the challenge of navigating new friendships, especially with non-TCKs. In my case, it was just too hard to try to explain my international life to others back in my passport culture. I was sure they wouldn’t understand me. For some TCKs, frequent moves and goodbyes make it hard to 17
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share not only their TCK identity but also other important stories and parts of their lives with just about anyone. TCK writer Tanya Crossman expresses this tendency when she observes, “Investment in another person is simply storing up pain for when the inevitable goodbye comes.”1 As I pocketed my TCK identity, judgments that I thought were self-protecting formed in my heart. I vowed that if I married, I would only marry another TCK, because “only a TCK could truly understand me.” Happily, my vow crumbled. I met a beautiful and caring nonTCK woman. We were married after college graduation, later moved to Indonesia, and reared three TCKs of our own!
An Important Breakthrough In my thirties I experienced an important breakthrough toward a deepening of my relationships. I finally decided that even if I was only going to be somewhere for a few weeks,
I would try to invest my heart more openly in sharing with others. I didn’t want to keep parts of my heart tucked away any longer. Friendships with colleagues also began to deepen. A big part of that breakthrough came when I started to acknowledge the pain of various losses in my life. My heart pains were beginning to heal. I was able to access more stories from my life and from the various rooms of my heart. And I discovered that the stories of my own healing resonated in the hearts of others. My stories helped to prime the pump and draw out stories from the wells of other TCK and global nomad hearts.
A Friendship Recession TCKs are not the only ones who choose to keep some stories buried deep in their hearts and who struggle to develop close friendships. In my passport country, the US, there is a “friendship recession,” according to a May 2021 survey on US American life.2 The number of close friendships among US Americans has declined
over the last thirty years. In 1990, 47 percent of US Americans reported having six or more close friends (aside from relatives). By 2021, only 25 percent of US Americans reported having six or more close friends. The percentage of those who reported having no close friends was up from 3 percent in 1990 to 12 percent in 2021. Is the friendship recession global? Chances are it is, since the factors contributing to the decline in close friendships (e.g., geographic mobility, among other factors) are present globally.
“ There are ‘friends of the road’— friends who meet up and journey together for a time over a shared task or location—and there are ‘friends for a lifetime.’”
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Friends of the Road and Friends for a Lifetime Is it possible to reverse the friendship recession? My hope-filled heart says yes, at least within the sphere of my own relationships. To help others cultivate that hope, “priming the pump” with my stories is important, as I mentioned above. But another concept that an older friend shared with me invites us to be realistic about where we might focus the nurturing of longer-term friendships. There are “friends of the road”— friends who meet up and journey together for a time over a shared task or location—and there are “friends for a lifetime.” These two are different.
Current friendships are waiting to be deepened. Other friendships have yet to be formed. They are inviting us forward. We TCKs and global nomads have a bounty of rich and diverse experiences and stories to share if we choose not to tuck them away. May it be so! Crossman, Tanya. Misunderstood: The Impact of Growing Up Overseas in the 21st Century. United Kingdom: Summertime Publishing, 2016, p. 120. 2 https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/thestate-of-american-friendship-change-challenges-andloss/. Accessed July 30, 2021. 1
Jamey Lewis is an adult TCK who was born and reared in Indonesia, attending boarding schools in Indonesia and Malaysia. He has lived and worked as an adult in Indonesia and currently resides with his family in Southern California, USA. Jamey is a life coach for adult TCKs and international professionals and is certified with the International Coaching Federation. www.couragelifecoaching.com. Instagram: @couragelifecoaching
Take an inventory of your friendships. Who are the friends with whom you have a shared history and an important bond of connection that transcends work or location? Devote time, money, and effort to cultivate those friendships. With others who are “friends of the road,” commit yourself to be a helpful, consistent, and caring friend as you travel together for a season. When the road forks and you need to part ways, thank each other sincerely and release yourselves from the expectations of having to be lifetime friends.
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“Current friendships are waiting to be deepened. Other friendships have yet to be formed. They are inviting us forward. ”
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Third Culture Kids in Quarantine:
Adaptability and Purpose By Esther C. Tan
*A version of this piece was previously published as a blog post on the Thrive Center for Human Development from Fuller Theological Seminary: https://thethrivecenter.org/third-culture-kidsduring-quarantine/.
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ith globalization, there has been a sharp increase in the number of people who live cross-culturally. As the internet and technological advances become more and more pervasive in the world today, more people are not only living in and among various cultures, but they are also becoming increasingly mobile—whether within their own countries or internationally. This has created more third culture kids and adults (TCKs and TCAs; third culture adults have had significant cross-cultural experience, but only after the age of eighteen). I found myself wondering how TCKs in particular have dealt with the difficulties surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic—particularly the experiences of quarantine and isolation. I recently had the pleasure of interviewing my TCK friend Rene Velarde on what has been challenging and easy about his quarantine experience. As I connected with Rene over several months,
I observed how he struggled, especially as an extrovert, with losing his anchoring rituals of connecting with community. I also observed how his TCK instincts kicked in steadily as he went in survival mode. In fact, they worked so well that, in spite of the disappointment and struggles during this period, Rene’s focus on his purpose in life helped him to keep sight of his cultural values and long-term vision. He accomplished a huge milestone by fulfilling his deep desire and life goal of buying a home to share with his parents and wife. All this was accomplished within a short two months while doing full-time graduate school— during a pandemic!
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Rene is a Master of Arts in Intercultural Studies graduate student who is pursuing his PhD in the coming year. He is a Mexican-American who has navigated back and forth through two different countries/cultures significantly during his childhood. He later moved between the east and west coasts of America before finally deciding to choose to go against his pattern of constant mobility by settling down and securing a home in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. What follows is some of our conversation. Esther: Rene, thank you for your generosity to share about your unique experience during quarantine. During this period of COVID-19, what has been easy and/or difficult for you as a TCK? Rene: Being a child of Mexican immigrants, I’m realizing a lifetime of TCK experiences makes COVID-19 realities both easier and more difficult. It’s easier because I’m already used to “finding a new normal” since I’ve moved seventeen times throughout my life. I’ve learned how to start over many times before, and so “starting over” during quarantine was initially easy. I adapt quickly and find the new “normal” well. Additionally, I have the change-in-orderto-survive bias that I think TCKs develop from moving so frequently. What I’m also realizing, though, is I’m not used to such extreme rigidity. Quarantine is a disruption to freedoms. Overall, more is lost than is gained. This makes the freedom/agile side of the TCK experience feel constrained. The loss of an agile lifestyle feels like a loss of a fluid normality.
“Quarantine is amplifying what I’m afraid of; and when I can’t ‘run away,’ I have to face my fears and decide what to do as a response.”
Esther: Wow—seventeen times! That’s a lot of experience with transitions and disruptions. It is indeed true that this period of staying home is a huge disruption to freedom and a season of losses. What did you do, then, to help yourself get through this rigid COVID-19 period? What worked well for you? Rene: What’s getting me through this is believing 1) either the restrictions will go away (though I stopped hoping for this with news of the ongoing lockdowns), or 2) I can change my mental state of being. I wrestle with my thoughts and tell myself that as difficult as it may be, it is easier to change my state of being than to change the state of the world. So, I try my best to adjust enough (within what I can control) to feel empowered. So now, I’m exercising at home instead of waiting for the gym to reopen. I changed my schoolwork routine—I work from the bedroom and am “off the clock” when I’m outside that room. Deciding what and how to change is a familiar feeling to the constant changes of a TCK experience. I am changing what I can to feel in control and protect myself from “horrible-izing” the situation around me. These “micro-changes” of mental focus help me intentionally steer (and redirect) where my mind goes. The daily moments of intentional reflection help me the most. At some point, I can’t rearrange something, or the news outside states that the virus is getting worse. Anxiety, stress, and panic creep in. In these moments, I usually speak to myself over and over, “I will be okay,” “I’m not going to die from this,” “I will survive,” and I repeat silently, “Holy Spirit, give me peace.” This works to help my mental health.
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In short, I’m a TCK that is trying to adjust and find new ways of being happy now that I’m alone more often and can do very little, if anything, about it. Finding smaller, more “localized freedom” is gold. Quarantine is amplifying what I’m afraid of; and when I can’t “run away,” I have to face my fears and decide what to do as a response. This realization is empowering and liberating. Ultimately, I choose how empowered I am in my reaction to whatever is in front of me—even if I can’t make what’s in front of me go away. I can choose to listen to the voices that paint a catastrophic narrative, or I can choose to silence them, reflect on biblical truth, and believe life is still possible, even here, in this reality.
Cactus Garden, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California. Photo courtesy of Esther Tan.
REFLECTION How many people can stay opportunistic and focused in times like this? Although Rene attributed it to his friends and the God he anchors in, I learned a lesson from a TCK here. I saw how they could quickly adapt and find a comfortable way to live through a challenge, while staying steadfast to their vision and purposes. Somehow, their adaptability and resilience in not allowing disruptions to distract them from things that they deeply value in life come through. I am deeply encouraged by his story.
Esther is a PhD candidate in Fuller’s Psychological Science program and she holds an Ed.M. from Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her research interests include socio-emotional well-being, career and purpose, and identity development. She has a particular interest in understanding how third culture kids and adults thrive in a globalized world and how their vocational calling and decisions are formed. She has also firstauthored the article, “A systematic review of third culture kids empirical research,” published in the International Journal of Intercultural Relations by Esther C. Tan, Kenneth T. Wang & Ann Baker Cottrell. www.thirdcultureliminal.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/esther-tan-49911924/
Esther: Thank you so much, Rene, for sharing your honest struggles, which articulate a lot about what many of us are facing but may not have as much courage to share with such transparency and clarity. Thank you for putting our experiences into words, and for giving hope with your creative ways of how we could gain internal control again as we empower ourselves, despite isolation and unanticipated circumstances. June 2021
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Hannah grew up in Ghana and the USA, and as an adult has traveled the world. She currently manages CulTuremiKs, a website for TCK art. www.culturemiks.com
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To My New Friends (from an MK)
By Hannah Mathews There is not enough time. There is never enough time. From the moment we meet I am thinking of the end; maybe because I have done this before. I’ve done this too many times before and every ending is too soon so there are two choices in response to that truth: courage or cowardice, love or fear, connection or solitude. I have never claimed to be courageous, but I’m trying. Dear God I’m trying and it’s harder than I thought it would be… There is not going to be enough time for me to love you in and the coward in me says don’t try but the image of God in my soul says otherwise. So I’m trying.
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SPOTLIGHT INTERVIEW:
LAUREN WELLS
F
ew have made as big of a splash in a short amount of time in the MK/TCK world as Lauren Wells. Within two years, her first book, Raising Up a Generation of Healthy Third Culture Kids, quickly became the new go-to for many parents raising children overseas. Then, her follow-up book, Grief Tower, has been timely and important during this era of ambiguous loss. Lauren’s small stature and soft voice seem in paradox with her grit and passion to positively change the lives of her fellow TCKs. The young girl who grew up an MK in the savannahs of Tanzania is now the mom of two and founder of her company, TCK Training. We hope you enjoy our Spotlight conversation with Lauren.
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Spotlight Interview Tell us a bit about your experience as a TCK. We moved to Tanzania, East Africa, from California when I was twelve. Between age twelve and heading to university at eighteen we moved four times and lived in twenty-one different houses!
When did you discover you were a TCK? When did you apply that label to yourself? I discovered I was a TCK when I was fifteen and attended my family’s training event for their organization. It was the first time I felt I had language to explain what had happened to me in the years we’d been in Africa.
Can you tell us about how and why you started TCK Training?
Through my own TCK experience and then working in TCK care for several years, I began to notice gaps in TCK care. Parents were often not being educated in the nuances of raising TCKs nor given practical tools to do so well. Those working in TCK care would often express feeling not qualified to do their job, and we were beginning to see evidence that adult TCKs were not thriving and were actually being negatively impacted by their TCK upbringing. This was all happening while I was having my own struggles as a young adult TCK! My heart’s desire became to see a new generation of TCKs grow into healthy adults. TCK Training began by supporting the parents, who are the best catalysts for preventive TCK care. Next, we added equipping and empowering those working in TCK care roles to care well for families.
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Finally, we began to provide resources for adult TCKs who perhaps didn’t receive the care they needed during their growing-up years.
From your experience working with TCKs and families, what do you see as the biggest needs right now? Taking the TCK life and its impact seriously. Growing up as a TCK can be a great, resiliencebuilding experience, but only with intentional care and permission to grieve the pieces that are hard about it. The amount of compounded grief experiences COVID-19 has brought to the already grief-filled life of many TCKs is staggering, and its impact won’t go away by just pushing forward. Families need to actively use this time to address the grief and loss, not brush it off—and doing that takes time and intentionality.
The amount of compounded grief experiences COVID-19 has brought to the already grief-filled life of many TCKs is staggering, and its impact won’t go away by just pushing forward.
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“I need to either buy paint, or we need to buy a new house.” How do you see your TCK-ness impacting your life today, either positively or negatively?
Well, I just painted a wall in my house because I told my husband, “I need to either buy paint, or we need to buy a new house.” I still crave change and the change of moving is always tempting me. I have to actively work to be settled and invest where I am. Positively though, I love to take my kids on “adventures” which usually means we go explore a new place we’ve never been to. They love our adventures and it’s a good way for me to combat my need for change! I also certainly would not be able to do the work that I do from a place of empathy and understanding if it weren’t for the good and hard parts of my TCK upbringing.
Can you share with us a memorable moment that stays with you that you experienced working with TCKs and their families? After a debrief with a family, a father looked at the timeline they had written out of all the difficult experiences they had been through as a family. He said, “Looking at this helps me feel so much more compassionate toward my kids.” Then he proceeded to apologize to his kids for making them feel like they weren’t allowed to admit those things had been hard. That was a turning point for that family and I was honored to be a part of facilitating it. It was one of those, “I’m doing exactly what I’m meant to do with my life” moments!
Spotlight Interview that I was a TCK, he wasn’t so fascinated by it that I felt more like a novelty than a person. I also appreciate that his parents’ home has been the most consistent physical location in my life. When I think of “home” I think of his parents’ house.
What do you wish you had known growing up as a TCK? What supports do you wish you had had access to?
My family out on safari on our beloved Land Rover.
Have you struggled with or embraced the idea of “settling down” in one location? What does that look like for you? Oh man, I have tried! We were fairly “settled” in Oregon for five years (the longest I’d lived anywhere since I was twelve), but then my husband’s job moved us to South Carolina. I am actively working to allow myself to be settled here, but it is a mental battle. A few ways I embrace settling are hanging pictures on the walls, building community, painting walls, gardening, and doing other things that encourage a bit of permanency.
If you are married, did you marry another TCK?
I did not! He was born and raised in Ohio. We actually met in high school when my family was on a home assignment and we dated long distance (Africa to Ohio) until college. I appreciated that he was very intentional about learning about my TCK life, and while he cared
I wish I would have known that so much of what I was going through was common. I didn’t realize that the identity struggles, grief, emotional challenges, etc., were all typical TCK challenges. I just thought something was wrong with me. I also wish our family would have had someone to guide us through our grief. We had significant losses during our first two years in Africa, but we never had access to someone to walk us through debriefing and grieving those as a family. Having that would have been, I believe, very significant for us.
“I worry that many TCKs are not only adapting their external selves but are changing their core (values, beliefs, ideas) in order to fit in.” Please share a brief summary of your books. Did writing these books shed light on anything for you personally? Writing my first book, Raising Up a Generation of Healthy Third Culture Kids, was full of “aha” moments and self-discovery. I constantly asked myself, “What do I wish my parents would have
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known?” and every part of the book answered that question. I wrote the book from a place of processing my own story, but with a mission to advocate for quality care for TCKs. My second book, The Grief Tower: A Practical Guide to Processing Grief with Third Culture Kids, actually started as a pamphlet. People kept asking me to explain the concept of the Grief Tower and the process of unstacking it—something I verbally talked a lot about but hadn’t written about in depth. I started putting together a pamphlet and then realized so many things needed more explaining, so I began writing a blog post, and then I kept thinking, “But this is important too!” and it grew into a book. It is a short and very practical view of the grief TCKs carry and how parents and caregivers can help them process through it. The third book, coming October 2021, is Unstacking Your Grief Tower: A Guide to Processing Grief as an Adult Third Culture Kid. This one has, by far, been the hardest to write on an emotional level. When I got curious about why this is, I realized it is because it’s the first time I’m writing to people like me—to adult TCKs who didn’t have the opportunity to process well as they grew up and are now trying to do adult life while carrying around a tall Grief Tower. I did that for so many years before really engaging in processing all that had happened during my growing-up years. This book feels so much more personal because my experience with the content is so much more recent. As I have been writing, I have been grieving the fact that I didn’t have a map like this, and because of that, had to crawl through thick mud to get to where I am today.
What is one of the greatest attributes TCKs contribute to our world today? Ah, so many! I think the most significant thing in our current world is the ability to see multiple perspectives. TCKs are very good at seeing more than one “right way” to do things or see things, and in the current global climate that feels so divisive and wants you to choose a side, we need TCKs who can point out the exceptions, grey areas, and reasons why we should give consideration to other viewpoints.
My parents, younger brother, and I out in Maasai Land where we would spend weeks at a time sleeping on cowhides and bathing in a crocodile-infested river.
What is one of the greatest challenges for TCKs in our world today? I think one of the greatest challenges is not using our great adapting skills to overcompensate for
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Spotlight Interview the people around us. We want to fit in and we are very good at doing so. While adapting is a great skill, I worry that many TCKs are not only adapting their external selves but are changing their core (values, beliefs, ideas) in order to fit in. Those things can absolutely change over time, but when they are changed for the purpose of acceptance into a group, that is unhealthy. Because people are so vocal about their opinions these days, TCKs can get easily caught up in shifting to become part of the crowd.
On a lighter note, do you have a funny or awkward TCK moment from your life that you’d like to share? When we were on home assignment one summer, we were about to go on a trip with a group of family friends. I was fifteen at the time. As we were getting ready to leave, one of the teenage girls said, “All the other girls are bringing Chis so I won’t bring mine.” Super confused, I said, “Why are they bringing cheese?” She said, “Well they are the best! I really want one too, but Mom says I have to wait till Christmas.” Up until a couple of days into our trip I was thoroughly confused about why the other girls were bringing cheese and why she wanted cheese for Christmas. Turns out a Chi was a popular type of hair straightener.
“A TCK is an individual who,
having spent a significant part of the developmental years in a culture other than the parents’ cultures, does not have full ownership of any culture. Elements from each culture are incorporated into the life experience, but the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar experience.”
- David C. Pollock
Purchase Books: https://tinyurl.com/3ybkfjx2 Website: https://www.tcktraining.com
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Tumaini By Melanie Han
post harvest
left behind
stalks of maize
plants
unforgiving drought
rhythmic thumps
awaiting
braiding
dusty bare feet
ever-turning jump rope
dry
rain
together
singing
your nimble hands
high-pitched
dancing
rafiki
voice
laughter
mango juice running
down our elbows
beads of green red
black
white
thoughts
bicycle
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our families
flying ants herds
green hills
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best friends
sharing chapati na chai
lush
rainy season
goats sheep
plentiful
birthday present
waterfalls taking matatu
kijabe to nakuru
your sister
pilau na nyama choma
steady drums
bright white
traditional kikuyu
lamb fat
wedding
dress
three cows
oil on scalp
leather
bands
celebration
two goats
into the night
brewed changaa
luo tribe
fire smoke
post-election violence acrid smell
no chance
metallic
burn
repeat history
trouble war kenya
“she’s dead”
goodbye
“tumaini amekufa”
coppery
no chance
“pole sana”
unrest
do not
hope
kikuyu tribe
disturbance
run away
stay on his good side
political
tears
blinking them away no chance
“rafiki yako amekufa”
for tumaini goodbye
kwaheri
Born in Korea and raised in East Africa, Melanie Hyo-In Han currently lives in Seoul where she’s a poet, teacher, and author of Sandpaper Tongue, Parchment Lips. She has received awards from “Boston in 100 Words” and The Lyric Magazine, and earned her M.F.A. in Poetry and Translation from Emerson College. Learn more about her at melaniehan.com.
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Friendship, Interrupted
What the Pandemic Did (and Didn’t Do) to Our Relationships By Katha von Dessien
Friend (noun): A person who you know well and who you like a lot, but who is usually not a member of your family. (Cambridge Dictionary) 35
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n February 2020, I booked a four-week trip to the US for the summer to visit some friends I hadn’t seen in years. I am a high school teacher and knew that the months until summer would be filled with a lot of work and stress, so knowing I’d get on a plane right after school ended sounded really good. I was looking forward to being with people so dear to me and recharging my batteries. COVID-19 began to creep onto the front pages of the newspapers, but I thought it would be under control by the time I left. We all know where this story is going…. Instead of flying around the globe to visit my past homes and beloved friends, I stayed put in my apartment, daily routines, and relationships. For months I have lived in isolation, and this has taught me quite a bit about the people in my life and how I relate to them. There were days, maybe even entire weeks, when I didn’t see another person in real life. Every day I woke up, walked over to the kitchen, and got a cup of coffee before I made my way to my desk and started working. I taught students in front of a black screen and communication was limited to emails and instant messages. When the last lesson was over, I forced myself to go on a walk by myself even though I couldn’t stand touring the same route over and over again. At night I wanted to talk to friends so badly—and yet, I couldn’t. During the day it seemed that I talked more than usual to compensate for the lack of personal or visual interaction, so by the end of the day my throat was sore, and my brain was tired. I had spent all my energy on talking about mundane things and there was simply none left to elaborate on what was really going on with me. I have lived in this city for five years and I have met many new people. Colleagues, neighbors, people at my faith community…. But who are
they to me? When the world shut down and everyone retreated within their own four walls, I wondered who I’d call and ask for help when my happy mask slowly wore off. I was a bit surprised when I realized how little I knew the people in my daily life and how uncomfortable I felt burdening them with myself. I deeply longed for my friends in other countries, but I didn’t want to jump on yet another Zoom meeting just to see their faces. Flights became a bureaucratic nightmare or impossible altogether. The world closed down and no one knows when it will open up again.
“ We don’t need more acquaintances in our lives; we need old souls. People we can call friends. People who know us well and allow us to be ourselves.” The pandemic made me reflect on the kinds of relationships in my life. I realized that in the midst of uncertainty and spiritual weariness there are people I have and people I need. It seems as if the relationships I’m in are put to the test in order to examine what they’re really made of. The conclusion I have reached is this: We don’t need more acquaintances in our lives; we need old souls. People we can call friends. People who know us well and allow us to be ourselves. With them we don’t have to hide parts of our story or explain the complications of growing up in so many different places. They don’t expect us to say much when we have talked all day, but let us lie on their couch instead. They invite us over for dinner because they know what loneliness and isolation can feel like. They give us a hug when we long for human touch. They think out loud and trust us with their own insecurities because they know they will be safe with us.
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So how do we find these old souls? The pandemic has thrown so many of us into collective grief. Well, that’s something TCKs can relate to. From too many goodbyes, we have learned that grieving is an essential part on the journey to adjustment and wellbeing. I wonder if the constant moving, losing, and rebuilding of our lives have prepared TCKs for times like these. Maybe some of the rituals we developed throughout the years can be applicable now as we say goodbye to booked visits to former homes, interrupted plans, or relationships that didn’t survive the very rocky last two years. We acknowledge our hopes and the disappointment that comes with giving them up. We say goodbye to plans that didn’t work out, weddings that had to be postponed, people who never call back. We admit that missing our friends really hurts. We lean into the grief and allow ourselves to feel it all because anger and sadness are part of the process.
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We discover the key people in our lives and rejoice in the fact that there are some old souls after all. We draw from the strength of our long-distance relationships developed through many years of separation. We know it is possible to build connection via the screen and faithful communication. We have survived Ebola epidemics, a terribly slow mail service, and different time zones—we can do hard things. We become more resilient and learn to value both the past and the present. We remain grateful for the friends we do have in other countries and yet challenge ourselves to invest in whoever is right in front of us. We get to know the people in our neighborhoods and allow ourselves to be known by them. We invite them over for dinner or give them a hug when they might need it the most. We think out loud and learn to trust each other with our insecurities because we know we’ll be safe. And one day, when we get on that plane to visit our other homes, we know we can always return, because we have made new friends here. We have found new old souls, because we have become old souls ourselves.
Katha von Dessien has lived in Uganda, South Africa, and the US. Now she’s based in Southern Germany where she works as a teacher, podcaster, and author. Blog: https://thisiskatha.com; Instagram: @mundane.narratives
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On the Outskirts By Ibtihal Ahmed
I
somewhat reside between two worlds which are polar opposites. They carry a fusion of labels; nameless ones. One is enchanting and loves boastful analogies, and the other is bashful and on the verge of timidity. I am to be found in the lost-and-found bin of recovered identities, yet nowhere to be found in a world full of labels. Perhaps we dive in cultural references so deeply that we forget that some of us reside on the outskirts of words. Crossing oceans was quite the experience—I hid every piece of my being underneath the promising tide lines. I was here and there, but neither here nor there. I was fascinated with new arrival signs the same way departure tunnels propelled me with the exhilaration of makebelieve presence. I have always been excited to leave and arrive at the same time. It’s like my identity was tied to in-betweenness or undefined borders, the kind of fog that surrounded my soul when asked where I was from. I am proud to say that the lost-and-found bin has found a home, a home in the slippery slopes of a fragmented label, too foreign to be pronounced, yet too pronounced to be glossed over. This is the beauty of arriving while leaving, and leaving while landing far away from the oceans I left behind.
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“too foreign to be pronounced, yet too pronounced to be glossed over. ” Ibtihal Ahmed is a Sudanese American and TCK who is based in the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Area. She aims to unveil her experiences as a TCK through her unpublished written project, Conversations. Ibtihal has a bachelor’s degree in developmental psychology and communications. She holds a master’s degree in conflict analysis and resolution and speaks three languages. https://themuslimvibe.com/western-muslim-culture/ahome-beyond-cultures-being-a-third-culture-kid
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Journey with us! Among Worlds magazine is accepting submissions for upcoming issues. We are looking for original, high-quality writing, poetry, photography, and visual pieces. We invite you to share your stories and talents with us! Click here for submission details.
December 2021 TCKs & the Arts Submission deadline: October 30, 2021
March 2022
Hospitality Submission deadline: January 30, 2022
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“ I exist in two places, here and where you are.” - Margaret Atwood
