Lately I’ve been hearing a lot of talk about missing people. I guess it has to do with the season. Its made me think again about missing people. I don’t know why and I don’t understand it but I don’t miss people. I don’t miss people. I used to miss my family all the time as a child. I remember crying myself to sleep in Iceland missing my grandparents and then in converse I would cry myself to sleep when I was in France missing my parents. I’ve spent my entire life (save one Christmas when we were all together) away from someone I love. This is not something I’m bitter about, just a reality I’ve lived with for 26 years. I don’t know anything different. And now that I live in Greece I’m away from my entire family and friends all the time. Also working with the organization I work with I’ve seen a lot of people come and go. Some I have come to love and others whom I’ve merely enjoyed their company, but everybody eventually leaves… or I leave. As a result of this knowledge I don’t invest myself fully in the people who are around me making the separation easier. I think this is a TCK trait. I’ve heard other TCKs say that. I’ll be open and cheerful to everybody and I love people easily but I don’t allow the roots to go too deep. Maybe it’s not real love then? I don’t know. Yet I would do anything for a friend in need.
All I know is that I live in the moment. I cherish my past and look forward to the future when I can be reunited with friends and family. To love, speak and cry together once again. Leaving was easy when I was younger as I knew I’d be back soon but now it has become a difficult thing for me as I never know when I’ll be back to a specific place. Also a reality I face every time I leave is the question of whether or not this is the last time I see a person. Especially for my family as they are not believers. That reality scares me more than anything. When I leave believers I have no doubt that I’ll see them again and take solace that we’ll have all eternity together. But when I leave a place I’ll experience excruciating pain and cry a while but then it’s over and I go back to the phone. I take comfort and solace in a digital image and VoIP. And then it’s all about the moment again. What I’m doing now. Yesterday was wonderful, today is amazing and I never know what tomorrow will hold.
I’ll have nostalgic moments like everybody else but they are only fleeting moments. If I want to talk to somebody I know I can always pick up the phone and call. Facebook and Skype have made it easy. If I think of someone I go to their facebook page and drop them a quick line. Or I use skype to call. The internet has made the world even smaller than before… something I’m infinitely thankful for.
Please whoever you are friend, know that I love you. This does not mean that our friendship is any less real or deep. It just means I have a coping mechanism that is different from yours. If I allowed myself to miss anybody I would have to miss everybody and I don’t know if I could cope with that.
Hi Enshu,
I’ve met a Chinese TCK whose last name was also Japanese (he had a Japanese citizenship!) while his first name was Chinese and he grew up in both Japan and China and some other places. I think as TCKs come a lot of challenges but like you said, the word TCK validates our experience! Oh man, I suffered from emotional harakiri whenever I was expected to be a certain way but I could never be! I would try to fit in but there was no way I can! It was such a stab in my heart/stomach of my heart? haha to be reminded that I wasn’t normal like what seemed to be the majority of people around me. Now I know, I am normal 🙂
I can understand what you mean, I don´t miss people, too. In some moments when bad things happened or I couldn´t cope with something I missed my parents (especially my mother) but I also think that it is good that I´m far away from them now. I don´t miss my relatives because I was never close to them although I´m always looking forward to meet them on Christmas. I don´t miss my friends but I keep them in mind. I never had a lot of friends in none of the countries I lived in.
When I went to Germany after living six years in Argentina the other students were bullying me during a lot of years in school, they said that I was strange and one girl once invited me to her home but she said that I should not tell it to anybody. I had some German friends who were outsiders, too. I think I didn’t fit in in Germany although it is my passport country.
When we moved to Spain I had three Spanish friends at school but it was not a deep friendship. I went to a German school and I think that the Spanish students had already their friends when I came to the school and they had enough of the German language and culture. I often hide myself in the toilet room during the breaks at school so that I hadn´t to walk around alone. I don´t have contact to any classmates from Spain, but I liked the time I spent in Spain. When I went back to Germany after finishing school in Spain I could find one very good friend and some other friends at the University but my best friend moved to Norway. I liked the time I spent in the University and I went half a year to study in Spain. I couldn´t finish the practical part of my studies because I was not doing the classes well in the opinion of the teachers who had to evaluate them and I get fired. I would have been helpful if I would have become more support and advice from my mentors, but it´s not their fault, I couldn´t fulfill the requirements. When I had to talk to the boss of the seminar who didn´t know me and who didn´t know how I was doing in the practice he made me feel like a person who is not able to do something well so that he could show himself as a person who does everything right and knows how you have to teach in the right way. I was very disappointed. I studied to be a teacher for primary school and in Germany you have to do a practical part during 1,5 years after finishing the University with the first state examination diploma. During the practical part you have to assist regularly to a seminar and someone will come to your classes and see how you teach to say you what you did wrong and what was okay. After this practical period you have to do the second state examination and then you can work as a teacher. I get fired during the practical period so that I studied 4 years for nothing. As I lived already in other countries I thought that there is no reason to stay in Germany because there was no perspective to find a good job because I couldn´t work as a teacher in Germany. For me it was easy to leave Germany and to go alone to another country and start again because this is what I have done during my childhood. I went first to Egypt and later to the Dominican Republic.
I had bad experiences with other people because I was different to the peers and the things they did didn´t interest me. It was hard to build up a friendship with somebody but I was a good, loyal and helpful friend to who accepted me as a friend. When I came back from Spain I didn´t want to put too much energy in a relationship because I knew that I didn´t want to stay in one place for the rest of my life. I have to say also that I never tried hard to get to know other people and stay in contact with them, I´m introvert and pensive, a good observer and I´m not good in asking questions because I don´t want to ask somebody unintentionally something which he or she doesn´t want to answer.