How a Global Citizen Found Belonging
After growing up in seven countries, I didn’t know where I was from.
“Where are you from?”
My stomach plummets. Anxiety billows through my chest. I feel flushed as expectant eyes train on me.
My brain flicks into processing mode. Do I tell the long or short version? Is this person worth the long version? Am I ever going to see them again? Do I even have the energy to tell the long version? But if I do tell them the long version, I might get that fucking annoying comment “but you don’t have an accent.”
Or should I just tell the short version? It’s so much easier. It allows people to stow me in that cozy cubbyhole of relatability. I’ll be spared the glazed over look of incredulity, the shift of conversation that time and again has invalidated my upbringing and validated me as an oddity. But I have to remember, the short version means I can’t use any words that will betray my difference.
Eh. I’ll go short.
“New Jersey.”
Relief. I’m out of it. But I feel slightly false. I’m not being wholly true. Not to them. I don’t give a shit about them, but to myself. I’m leaving out a walloping chunk of my story, of the stuff that actually made me me. But I am used to hiding myself because this…
