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
Among Worlds
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,
