I try not to play the Third Culture Kid card too often, but tonight I’m throwing it down.
Because guys, there are so many versions of Becca Spellman.
There’s a version of me that loves angsty alt-rock. I left her at a combined church/school campus in Rio.
Lincoln, NE holds a gutsy Becca that sat with the football players at lunch time when most girls didn’t dare.
Would you believe there’s even a sporty-Spice version of me in Minnesota who was a star on her swim team? Ok, maybe not a star, but I killed on the backstroke.
Least favorite among these versions is the Becca who is sitting in a beachside apartment, paralyzed in fear.
The map is littered with remnants of who I once was, and who I sometimes still am. That’s probably true for most kids who grew up between cultures.
And I don’t dwell on what I’ve left behind too often, but sometimes a ghost-of-Becca-past will rear its head in a way I can’t ignore. It happens when I’m talking to someone who “knew me when” or maybe when I travel to a place I used to call home.
Call it a quarter-life crisis, but this head-rearing has been happening a lot lately. I’ve been thinking on who I was and who I am and who I want to be.
Reconciling all these identities is not easy. I love gutsy Becca, and I want to be her all the time, but other things crowd her out as I try to hold on to all the pieces of myself. It’s easy to feel like I’ve lost the things I love most.
So I’m struggling through the creation of a new version of myself that honors all the other versions. I’m spending time reminiscing on what I valued and what brought me joy. It makes me feel all kinds of nostalgic for people and places that may never be a part of my life again, but I’m slowly recalling the truth of who I am. It’s sort of ugly and really messy and sometimes painful, but I’m thinking the end result just might be worth it.
I mean, everyone deserves to know first-crush-Becca who one day told her sister, “I understand love songs now.” Who am I to deprive the world of that?