My Coffee Table is an Action Packer
For those of you who don’t know, an action packer is a heavy duty, lockable plastic storage box. They are incredibly versatile and hardy. Not necessarily the typical coffee table aesthetic that most people choose. But I have had action packers in my various living spaces for almost 20 years. They have traveled around the world, they have been a part of many different lives, and served a myriad of important functions, not the least of which was a coffee table.
First they were suitcases. They transported the possessions of a family of seven from one continent to another year after year. They were checked luggage, their contents thoroughly inspected by TSA in dozens of airports. They were purchased for this purpose, and branded with address stickers and security tags from the very beginning. If you opened them up, you would see zip ties duct taped to the inside of the lid with a note to the security officers to please re-secure the boxes once they had been inspected, so that our family possessions could be delivered to their next destination without further disturbance.
Then they were dressers. They lined the walls of the room that my four siblings and I shared once we reached Uganda, each trunk designated to holding a different child’s clothes and other belongings until we were able to furnish and expand the house to fit our family better.
They were a buffet table - for what else do you do with 14 action packers you have to somehow fit into a house that has no attic, basement, or other place dedicated purely for storage? And so they were stacked along a wall, covered with a tablecloth, and used to serve food to the many guests that passed through our lives.
They were a roof rack accessory - strapped to the roof of the Toyota Land Cruiser for the purpose of filling with groceries when we made the many hour journey to the closest town for supplies. They could travel through rain or dust, and traverse the rollercoaster of a dirt road filled with potholes that would swallow a less sturdy vehicle, and their contents would remain untouched, unshifted.
They moved me to college, back and forth between dorms and whoever I was staying with in the summers. They moved me into my first apartment, my second, third, fifth. They have taken up space, protected valuables, preserved memories, defined what I could choose to bring with me into each of these new places and lives I would live, and what had to be left behind. But more than that, they taught me how to live each new version of me with these things I have brought along. Whether to lock away old memories, safely contained and separate from my present day life, or to honor and adapt the sentimental things of the past to have a place in this new life.
They were more than just storage bins. They defined both my transitions and how I coped with them.
Third Culture Kids get a lot of practice assimilating and adapting their old selves into new environments. We can figure out what to do next, how to make new friends, how to change ourselves to fit into the environment we have to live in next. But what do we do with the “stuff” of our past? Do we bring it? Will it fit in our new life? Will it be acceptable to those around us? Or will it be disruptive, offensive, or isolating?
Honestly, for alot of TCKs, saying goodbye and starting over isn’t the hardest part. Living in a perpetually long-distance relationship with our “selves” from the past, feeling those parts of who we were continue to fade further and further away, and figuring out how in the world we are supposed to cope with that distance or ever feel whole again - THAT’s the hard part.
And that’s where containers - and how we use them - come in.
Chances are, you, or a TCK you love, have already figured out a way to cope with this. And most likely, you cope by compartmentalizing. We are all made up of different parts, and we only let out the parts of ourselves that fit in the environment we find ourselves in. This keeps things neat, simple and safe. You read the environment, you chose an identity to put on like clothes, and you step out in the world and go about your day.
So the question becomes, what happens to the versions of you that never match the environment, and therefore never get worn? Maybe they get locked in an action packer, and stored for a “one day” that may never come, because it’s too painful to get rid of, too painful to be reminded it has no function, too painful to even make a decision about. The action packer can hold it safe and hide it away.
But that’s the thing about action packers. They can be many things, but only when and what you tell them to be. They can hide things if you want. Or they can display them. Organized them. Give them a place to belong. It all depends on whether you want it to gather dust in the attic, or host coffee in your living room.
Compartmentalization is a really helpful coping tool. It’s absolutely necessary and healthy and helpful for so many reasons. It’s not really the compartmentalization that leads to problems. It’s the relationship you have to those different parts that makes this tool healthy or unhealthy. How do YOU feel about those parts of you? Do you accept them and love them and give them space to breathe? Or are you are too afraid, or ashamed, or hurt to look at them - and that’s the REAL reason they stay hidden away.
It’s ok if you feel this way. And it’s ok if you don’t know what you want that relationship within yourself to look like. Sometimes keeping things in their neat little boxes, tucked away for safekeeping is a helpful thing to do for a time. Maybe that is working for you right now. You just have to ask yourself if that way of coping feels sustainable, and if it’s what you want for yourself in the long term.
Honestly, there is no singular “right” answer. For me, it was bringing the things from my past out from the closet and giving them a prominent place in the space I live my life in, reminding me of where I’ve been and honoring the things that have helped me get this far. Honestly, this plastic box covered in TSA stickers is my most well used piece of “furniture” now.
But that’s me. You get to decide how your past shows up in your life. You get to decide what you want your metaphorical action packers to do for you. Just know that if you decide you want to unpack them, brush off the dust, and figure out a way to give those past selves a space to exist in your present life, it can absolutely be done, and I’m here for you if you want a helping hand along the way.
