A Cracked Mirror

It had been a while since I had interacted with a TCK when suddenly I was surrounded by them. If you have never been surrounded by TCKs you need to try it. They spanned from middle school age to just older than myself. Planning for this special weekend was unique. I had to fight the urge to plan out every minute, knowing that my kind is expert at bonding, especially with a whole slew of people who would never ask you where you are from.

I love how close they are all sitting

We all piled into a semi circle of couches almost immediately, introducing ourselves and each other, laughing, and feeling a hint of what home might feel like to others. It was beautiful.

The younger ones knew only that they were different to a small extent. They were living still in limited worlds where everything still seemed normal. The older ones were soaking up every moment like a sponge, recognizing how unique this experience really was, and relishing a moment where everything really did seem normal.

I found myself incredibly emotional, pausing to take mental photos, actual photos, and to store up each precious moment in my heart as a stockpile for later, a reminder that I am not alone in the world. Each face was a stranger and also a reflection, and we had so much fun. The conversation sat at a defaulted depth of our cores. TCKs are notorious for hating small talk and it showed. We reached inside ourselves and held our beating hearts, not on our sleeves to be seen, but in our hands, ready to pass out to anyone with empty hands to hold it.

Even the non-TCKs felt it. Bonding. It happened without prompting and never stopped. No one was excluded. The thought of it, even now, years later, still fills my heart up to the brim.

I thought, these people are all like me.

And then something happened. One of them wasn't.

He was, but he wasn't.

I sat talking about never wanting to go back, about wanting to bounce from place to place, not even daring to utter what had become a banned phrase in my mind, "settle down". Then I looked up at him eager to see him nod and agree with the enthusiasm only a similar soul could comprehend. But he didn't. He said it. He wanted to settle down. It caught me off guard.

No. I had heard people say this in theory, my older brother had said it before. In my mind I would laugh knowing that he was bred to explore, that in his heart he is a traveler. Staying in one place too long would burn under his feet and his eyes would wander to the sea.

But this was different. This TCKs eyes did not wander to the sea, they wandered to the land he hoped to go back to, a ground where he would raise his flag, claim, and then settle. Inside me was screaming that this could not be. What kind of TCK does he think he is? It felt
wrong. In my perfect world of mirrors one cracked.

It still astounds me from time to time, but I can understand it better now. To find a place that stays familiar, to not move again, to root yourself in a people, a place, a home. I don't know if my eyes will cease to wander to the sea. I think it will be some time before that happens, but I know now that a TCK is not a mirror. We all have a texture, an echo that resonates within us at the same frequency and tone, but how that texture shows up under our individual colors, how that echo sounds in the midst of our unique symphonies is always different.

When I read about TCKs it is like reading a choose your own adventure book. Do those still exist? All of our stories start with the same first chapters, the base of our experiences and characteristics are the same, a life between worlds. But then as you move forward there are splits in the paths. Each person lets those first chapters shape them differently. Some never settle down, some never move. Some stop reading the news, some dig deeper into it. Some love their past, some forget it.

No matter where your adventure takes you, though, your first chapters are the same as mine, as other TCKs. And when you throw a bunch of us in a room, no matter how we have grown those traits, no matter how many of us do not see mirrors, we will all have the same textures and echos, and we will recognize them in each other. It is beautiful.