Different

I'm sitting in what is about to become our new church small group. Around the room I see all the young adult married couples who have come presumedly for the same reason we are here, to connect. I knew it was coming but somehow I blocked it out of my brain. We will have to introduce ourselves. It is an inevitable fate and when it really sinks in I feel the dread rising in me.

I know I look different. I have not only my natural red hair at this point, but a fade to black thrown in. I love it, but it makes me different. I have a lip ring. I love that too. But it instantly makes me different. Normally it doesn't bother me because I KNOW I am different. But at this point I don't know if I want to be.

The leader doesn't ask us to say where we are from, and I am so relieved that it feels like some of my strange is melting off of me, but only some. I love meeting new people, but it is hard to watch the eyes glaze over when I try to answer questions or explain who I am. It is hard every time. I should know. I have done it over a million times. It looks like my husband will have to explain who I am though and I am glad. He knows me so well and he always knows better than I do how much is too much to share. He is the master of small talk, my own mortal enemy.

We have to say an interesting fact about our spouse and, while I have one picked out for him, I am curious what he will say for me. I lean over and whisper, "what are you going to say?" He grins and says, "that you have red hair..." and I roll my eyes at him and then glare icily. I half hope he is joking and half hope he is not. I want to be the real me but a part of me wants to fit in a little, even if it is just for a minute.

We are listening to each couple as they say who they are, how they met, and interesting facts. The ones who are newly weds are tentative, making sure not to embarrass their spouses by crossing some line they didn't know existed. My husband and I have been married five years now. We have stepped over lines, on toes, across boundaries, and found our way back to each other. Living in a new culture will do that to you. We know where we stand and how to do this. We have done this before. We will do it again.
Suddenly I hear something different. Another couple, another husband, his voice is changing to a tender and careful tone, but behind it is pride. I know it. It is what my husband uses when he talks about me. "She grew up in Santiago, Chile. Her first language was Spanish." I find myself uncontrollably nodding, hoping to reach out from my spot on the couch and say that somehow I know. I know Santiago. I have been there. I know Spanish. I speak that. I know that timid grin she has as she looks around. I do that. I want to yell it out so she knows that I know. She is different like me.

My husband does it perfectly. Rather than announcing that I am strange he offers advice to not ask where I'm from and lists off a few of my countries, the start of my list. It is perfect and I'm grateful. But it doesn't matter as much anymore because I am not the only different one. She is grinning at his admonishing not to ask the dreaded question. She knows. She is reaching out saying that she knows.

We've always been different, but different is okay.

I don't know why I always feel this way. We are everywhere. TCKs are all over and we always find each other. I know this. I have seen it everywhere I go. We are so different we recognize that different in others. There is always someone who traveled to one of my countries, someone who knows my heart languages, someone who goes home to a different world, or whose home is the whole world.

And now that I know I am not the only different I can listen. I can be still. We can grin at each other when the coffee is ready to drink at 8pm. I am not the only different. I don't feel alone when someone says they don't like to travel even though travel is all I know. I don't feel anxious to explain who I am even though they don't know. I listen to the stories around me because I don't need to be known right now. Someone already knows.

They are different like me.