It's autumn here in the north eastern USA. A time of transition from the heat and sunshine of the summer to the colder months of winter. Where I live, the weather isn't that cold yet - it’s definitely not winter. But it's not really summer anymore either.

It's an in-between place.

And yet instead of being decidedly not summer and not winter, this in-between place is its own category: autumn. It even has it’s own culture now. As soon as September hits, people put on their sweaters, drink their pumpkin spice lattes, go apple picking and get out all the "Its fall y'all" home decor they can find. It's exciting to be in autumn - trendy even - because someone decided that it is its own unique category of thing. Not just “not one thing and not another”.

So, OF COURSE, this set me on a lovely little rabbit trail about other types of in-between places…

As TCKs, we are all too familiar with these in-between places. 

We live in them -

Not quite from one place yet not really from another. Not quite at home here (or there) but not really a visitor either.

Sometimes we ARE them -

 Not *really, truly, fully* one nationality, but not the others either. And not a combination of nationalities because maybe we don’t have the paperwork, the visas, the passports, the specific number of days in country or whatever other arbitrary rule the powers that be decide allows us to identify ourselves in that manner. Not red. Not blue. Not red and blue. Something in between,  but somehow completely different. 

The other metaphor I like to think about with in-between places is that of a ship in international waters. If you are on that ship, where are you? What category do you fall in? Is it the country where the ship is from? Or whoever bought the rights to hang a flag from it? Are you just in the ocean? Or pure no-man’s land? I’m sure there are plenty of people out there with more knowledge about international waters and what the “correct” answer here is.

But the point I am trying to make is:  if you hang a flag from a ship in the middle of the ocean does that really mean you're in that country? Or are you just picking an identity so that people know how to interact with you? 

Even if there is a piece of paper somewhere that tells you the “correct” answer for which part of this planet you belong to, is that enough information for it to be true? Or is it like calling purple blue, and autumn winter. Like maybe technically that’s not fully incorrect. But it’s definitely not right in the sense that matters.

What if, instead of reducing our identity to things that other people can understand, TCKs were just embraced as our own unique category? Not one thing and not the other, but allowed to be in between? I mean that's what we are anyways, so what if the world just let it be?

We are purple. We are autumn. We are international waters. It would be silly (and reductionist) to call us anything else.

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But I can’t leave this conversation without acknowledging that there are so many potential caveats to this conversation. This is far too complicated of a topic to not carry waterfalls of nuance. One of these nuances is that sometimes people are not open and welcoming to others who don’t fit into their “pre-approved” categories. Sometimes people who are “othered” are met with criticism or offensive ignorance when we are proudly and fully ourselves. 

To not fit in other people’s categories is a beautiful thing. To have the ability to decide for ourselves what shade of "in-between" we are is also a beautiful thing. But sometimes it is uncomfortable or even unsafe to deal with other people’s baggage around how they perceive us. That is not your fault. And also it is completely ok for you to choose how you show up and how much of yourself you share around different people. I hope that this world will become friendlier and more open-minded to all people (not just talking about TCKs here). But until that day comes, I hope that you are able to show up as your own beautiful unique in-between self to the person it matters most to - yourself.

<3 Maria