Culture in the Blender

Although I think we’ve all heard “home is where the heart is” as some kind of well-meant, but misguided attempt to shed light on a lifetime of thought in a few seconds, I’m starting to appreciate a second possible meaning to the proverb, one that might actually be helpful. My rub with the idea is that our hearts are not attached to one place - so how does that help? And for those who feel at home somewhere where they will never be accepted as Self due to race or ethnicity, it’s downright a slap in the face. But when I think about spending the rest of my life with my fiance, I feel a sense of calm in part because we will make a home together wherever we will be. My heart is with him, and that’s just one place, so to speak. He said something along those lines a few times when I was down about not belonging anywhere earlier, and he was right. No sense of division or of being torn or wondering to whom my feelings can be expressed. No one questions commitment to a life partner. This feeling is one of the big factors that made me realize I really want to spend the rest of my life with him instead of someone else. Being with him is not entirely unlike being in the third culture - it’s a sense of home and comfort I can bring with me. (Not incidentally, he got adopted as a son-in-law after meeting my parents once. It’s that similar.) We can roll with the punches and be ourselves in many different ways as appropriate.

I had never in a million years expected to feel this way about someone who has never left their country of birth. I read sometime right after we had become a couple that children of alcoholics have similar problems as TCKs, and I can’t help but wonder if that’s why. His mother is an alcoholic and his father a drug user, and somehow he got through his childhood, went to college, and got a PhD. Why we should have similarities with children of alcoholics I don’t know. I’d try to find out if I wasn’t so very busy planning a wedding and writing my thesis. Perhaps a project for the future.