Belonging

When the mind is in one place, the body in another, and the heart is torn between the two.

I have felt my roots tentatively reach out towards the soil where I'm living at the moment, and very cautiously test its feel, its dampness and its adequacy. But the earth beneath my feet is never quite right. Having once been uprooted, I do not know where I really belong, other than with those I love.
Some of them - the wider family - are on one side of the world, the others - my husband and children - are on the other side, my current side.

I consider myself a fundamentally happy and positive person. And yet there is this deep underlying melancholy and dissatisfaction with life. Where I'm living is never quite right. My work is never quite the right one. I'm constantly persuaded that there is better. And yet this "better" is always slightly out of reach.

As I sit here, writing this post in a concert hall, listening to the NZ Trio playing Dvorak's Third Piano Trio, who was deeply influenced by the Bohemian music from his homeland, I can't help but wonder... where IS my homeland?

My heart, body and mind have been forever undecided, and unable to decide. I am coming to the conclusion that this is to be my reality. Yet my heart aches for the unity of all three. I wonder if all Third Culture Kids identify with such a feeling of unending quest for peace of mind, body and heart.

If you're in that place too, I'd love to hear from you. If you've been in that place, but you've found a way to grasp such peace, I'd love to hear from you too.

As the concert drew to an end, it dawned on me that I am raising Third Culture Kids myself. I'm not a missionary or a diplomat, but my husband and I simply live in another country from the one we call home (it is home to my husband, it is a home to me). I must admit that I don't like the idea that my children will battle with the same feelings of inadequacy and lack of belonging, that they will grow up purple (I love this blog post by a Mum of TCKs). It is yet another battle that I want to win, for their sake as much as mine. I don't look forward to tearing my children's tender roots from this soil, and relocating them to the other side of the world. That day will come though, and when it does, I will be there with all the empathy a TCK Mum can have. But I won't have all the answers. And as Pooh Bear says so well:

Kia Kaha! Be strong!