Icebergs

I have been living in this country for 5 years now. And I have been in this apartment, at this work, with these people for almost 3 years. I am restless and also exhausted. It is hard to explain this to my monocultural friends. They hear escapism and struggle to understand why I would feel that I don’t fit in even though I am accepted and loved in my communities. Especially since it has been 3 years.

Many days I find myself listening to things happening around me, wondering if I understand motivations, processes, or even joys or offenses. If culture is an iceberg, then 3 years has allowed me to explore most of the top of this iceberg. 5 years means I can tell you where everything is on the top of this iceberg. But I cannot tell you what is underneath. I can guess, but I cannot know.

It is hard to find out that someone is upset with you and have no reference to know why. It is even harder to not know that someone is upset with you and yet, you will never guess it because the thing you did “wrong” isn’t even on your radar of what wrong is.

I have talked before about the idea of “normal” and how it is a very slippery term that can be as unique as skin tone or DNA. But, how can you know what you don’t know? For most of the people in my community, there are things that were never overtly taught to them but were infused into them and their thought processes and understandings of the world. This is true for me as well. When one lives as a majority there is very little to challenge or highlight those formations. But, if one lives as a minority, those things are challenged often. 

For the TCK, life is almost always lived as a minority. The TCK culture, though found in many people, is rarely concentrated into a populace but rather spread and scattered in smatterings across the globe. What does this mean?

For me, in this season of life, where I find myself to be a hidden immigrant and in the overwhelming minority culture, it means I am always adjusting and guessing what sits below that water. It is hard work. It can be stressful or interesting. Some days I am endlessly curious, other days I am frustrated. 

But God help the monoculture human who finds themselves in a space of majority TCKs. It can be a shock. I am hungry for that space. In the meantime, I am eternally grateful for the friends who make room for the top of my iceberg. The people who ask if I am familiar with a cultural reference (with no judgement) before moving forward to reference it. The people who ask curious questions. The people who listen to my strange stories. The people who remember my “unnormal” things and thereby make them slightly more normal. They are not my TCKs but they are my people.

Happy Holidays