Category Archives: expat

Living in England during the Gulf War

Part of being a Third Culture Kid (TCK) is how the memories of your developmental years shape the rest of your life. There have been two periods of my life as a young girl where I lived in England. My father, a USAF officer, was stationed in England for three tours for a total of nine years. Two of those were at military bases of Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire and Lakenheath in Norfolk. During his years at Lakenheath AFB, we lived on the economy in a small village called Saham Toney All the other American children I knew went to school on base, while I went to the primary school in the village. My mum has recollected how being the only American family in that village was a positive situation for us while the Gulf War, codenamed Operation Desert Storm, took place. It was a time period in 1990 to 1991 where my father was absent from my memories of Norfolk, England.

I remember the day my dad walked me home from school and talked to me about the war going on in a place that seemed so far way. I would have been about eight years old, the same age my son Ronan is now. We discussed about the other missing fathers and mothers who were off fighting the war already. He held my hand as we walked and began to tell me he would be going away too. I was so sad and did not want to believe the news. I remember asking about my mum and how she took the news. What would we do while he was away at war? Did he really have to go?

He did. I understood it was part of his job in the military. Something I accepted as all military dependents do. I could not have asked for a better place to be during that time than in that small village going to school in a place that seemed so far away from all things war related. I was the only child whose parent was off fighting in the war. I did not have to be reminded daily by seeing other military men and women in uniform or by the tearful eyes of other families missing their loved ones. We were so taken care of by everyone at that primary school and by our friends in the village. Even the kindness of strangers by those who lived near by and knew of the American family who lived at that farm house.
It is a period of great memories and I am today facebook friends with classmates of mine from that time.

What really helped was having my friends at school and being involved in activities like Brownies (version of girl scouts). I remember putting on a play for our Brownie troop with my friends with a script based off of the American Girl Doll, Molly, who grew up stateside during WWII. We used to have it on video, and watching an american play with us little girls all in english accents was priceless.

Most of my favourite memories are from years growing up in Europe and many of them include my dad now that he is really gone. One of the best memories I have is when I was finishing up a day from school. It was the afternoon and I had just completed a game of field hockey with the other girls and we were now changing to go home for the day. A classmate ran into the room and exclaimed to me that my father was outside. I remember shaking off the news with out a care because I knew my dad was not there. He was a world away. He was in a desert. He was not in England and certainly not at my school. Grabbing my belongings I left the school building to be proven very wrong as my eyes met my fathers. I remember the way he looked. He looked so tall (from my short stature of being a young girl) and so tanned. I do not remember my father every looking so dark. He was smiling and I dont remember if I dropped my bag or ran with it under my arm. But I ran all the way to be greeted by his arms in a hug. To be honest my eyes are filled with tears as I write this because it was such a happy memory. Times when I wish I had my father now I wish I could just close my eyes and open them again to see that same smiling face. To be able to give him one more hug. To hear him say ‘I love you’.

That would not be the last time my dad would be away. More reasons and situations would call him away and more memories without him would be made. However my memory of him being gone so frequently is outweighed by all the wonderful and beautiful memories we shared together during his life. Many of which involve my land of birth, England.

I Found my Smile

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One reason I blog is because I love to write and share photographs. When we moved back to England I wrote a piece entitled ‘I found my Smile’ and shared it with my friends on a facebook note. It was written during a big turning point for me as this nomadic free spirit. As a Third Culture Kid (TCK) I have no real home to go back to and I always wondered what direction life would have me go. I really wanted to share this letter with you all.

“The last fourteen weeks have flown by and I have yet to cease photographing every second of my return back to England. So much so, that between my iPhone captures and my DSLR photographs, I have filled up almost all my available space on my latest external hard drive. From capturing daily memories to photographing the beautiful aspects of my European surroundings, there always seem to be something catching my eye. My taste buds have also been continually won over by a variety of Cadbury chocolates, copious amounts of tea, and delicious meals my husband has prepared with all English ingredients. The most meaningful of these are the ones that I have grown up with as my personal ‘soul foods’. I have long been teased by Americans for my extreme fondness of Beans on Toast, and now I can not only order it at almost any food establishment, but it is also common to find jacket potato with beans & cheese on the menu, which is another of my favourites. These once believed ‘bonnie-isms’, have been clarified in my mind recently that I claim more to being English, than just holding my UK Passport. Of course I am not saying liking a certain type of food is sole reason to claim a nationality. Being a Third Culture Kid, I can compare it to waking up from a coma and suffering amnesia. It is the little things like tastes, sounds and smells that instantly take me back ‘home’ and for a mobile girl with no home per-se, that means the world in my eyes. Finding happiness and a sense of peace, has cemented itself as an important milestone in my life. It has been a decade since I moved from my ‘homes’ in Europe to the USA, and I have had my share of loss, persecution and trials specifically in the last three years of that time. I have also experienced growth and knowledge through the hard times, forever changing myself into whom I am today. Through the thick of it I cried out in anguish to God, but now I can now look back and see the work that has been done on me. The devastating loss of my dad, the loss of my marriage at one point, and the loss of friends when I needed them most is an accumulative total of pain I would not ask to be put on anyone else. I have learned to rely on myself and that being on your own will not kill you, but make you stronger. Looking back in retrospective on my life, I can honestly say I know who I am and everything that is my world today, holds so much value against any stressors that may come my way now.

Since the day I moved away from Europe in 2000, I knew I would return back ‘home’. Any friend I have made in the USA in the last decade has known that has been my goal. I have not faltered with that dream. But along the way from acquaintances, friends, family, and even now to people I have just met here in England, I have been asked why I would want to move away from the USA. I hold US citizenship, I have an american accent, and I was born to two Americans. Although they grew up in the USA, I grew up moving across military bases in Europe until I was about seventeen years old. I personally feel I have never been able to assimilate into American life, with other Americans, in the USA (despite the numerous places I have lived over there) and from my study of Third Culture Kids as Adults, I understand that it is perfectly normal for that to be the truth of the matter. But in the last decade I have been forced into this Mold ‘ala Americana’ by my peers, my teachers, my bosses, my mother, and my husband’s family. Yet all I have wanted is to be accepted for being different, having a multifaceted life of culture as my nationality, and for being a girl who just loves to live and experience all life has to offer. Every therapist or psychologist that I have met with has met my goal to move back to Europe with a rigid opinion that doing so would be a bad life choice on my part. To this day I still do not know how to relate to people who are not personally a TCK, despite their professional qualifications, that I’m not moving to Europe to relive the past in a unhealthy mindset. I have moved back to Europe because of growing up there in my developmental years, I have formed a sense of nationality and home to that area, and it holds something for me that America could never offer. It is like the analogy I have heard of where you live in a blue society and everyone is trying to force you to dress in blue, but you come from a yellow society where as much as you could acclimate into that world you were not fully accepted as yellow. So you step out, standing out in green because that is who you truly and are most happiest. For me, I am a mixture of more than just two cultures, countries, or continents. I am a Third Culture Kid and I have always been proud of who I am, even if I am continually misunderstood. Which is why this move has been so important to me. The one question, spoken by many, looming over my head, “What if you move back, and find that you are not happy?” It is a pretty big ‘What if’ and especially given the big process of moving my family to another country. There was a slight fear, that what everyone felt would happen, would be true. Because then I would truly not have anywhere in the world I could ‘move home to’ and feel at peace. With such a long wait to return to Europe, with leaving so much pain behind me and mixed in with everyone’s opinions about moving, I embraced life by the hands and took the leap.

Still I may be in the honeymoon stage of living here, but theres an undeniable fact that resurfaces daily. Despite any stresses that have come along the way with uprooting to another country, I have indeed found my smile. For the first time in my life, I am not waiting to move somewhere else or wanting to be somewhere else. It feels like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Its not even a specific of wanting to be in Brighton, England, but just being back home in Europe that means everything to me. It has been eighteen years since I was in England before, and I am enjoying every aspect of it. Its familiar and comforting, but new in its own right. I love my days off because I can enjoy all England has to offer with my family, who have not lived in Europe before. I enjoy going to work because everyone I work with is a pleasure to be around. I love my coworkers and I love my clients, it feels so rewarding. I’m not going to make this a blog about ‘American girl drama’, but from the social interactions I’ve experienced in the US compared to England there is is a huge difference with how people relate, respond, and problem solve with each other here than what I’ve experienced before in the USA. It just drives home to me that this is where I am supposed to be, because I finally do not feel like I’m not having to force myself into a cultural way of acting or acceptance that is foreign to my upbringing in a multicultural and mobile world. It has been a huge moment of clarity for me, for witnessing the way I react to negativeness that may come my way. In just the last three months I have heard negative things said about me through other people, I have had people say toxic things to me directly, and I have witnessed things that are simply stated not very compassionate. Yet the overwhelming state of peace and an almost zen like attitude that has befallen on me since being here has made resilient and accept that toxicity will always be present, but I am in control of how I react to it. I am so happy to be here, so happy to be having my family here to experience a life I have wanted so much to live that it simply does not matter. I am stronger than I have ever given myself credit for and I can be indifferent..but I don’t have to be angry. That is how finding my smile has changed my life. If my life of growing up in lands far, far away is the beginning of my fairytale, this return to Europe is certainly not the end to my story.”

Written by Bonnie Rose August, 2011

A year and a half later I look over that letter and at the girl who felt and wrote those words. What I really take away is how important it is to be yourself and to find the happiness in life. I mentioned in the letter that I was experiencing the ‘honeymoon’ stage and to be fair I feel like I am still experiencing it. Granted I did move to a different city in England this past December However the finer points of noticing the little things, finding happiness in the simple things, and sharing each cherished memory with your loved ones are key. Who says you cannot live live with a ‘honeymoon’ outlook. Life is so short and I hope you all find the love and happiness you each deserve.

I would like to thank the close few whom have been there for me especially in the last several years. You know who you are, and I am who I am today because of your kindness, acceptance, forgiveness, and love.

Expat Love Story: Finding Love Across the Pond

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There is something synonymous about the hearts of expats, third culture kids, and world travelers alike. Every place you live, every trip you take, each culture you encounter, and the lives that touch your own find their own special place in your heart. In turn pieces of yourself, like pieces of your heart, are left scattered across the many places your footsteps once touched. From all corners of the world they are calling for you to return once more.

I was born and grew up moving and traveling across Europe until I was seventeen years old. Nearly an adult and thinking I knew everything as a teenager shall. My parents moved us ‘back home’ to their home culture of America. Over the next decade I would try to fit myself into that culture which should have been easy to do with my American passport, looks, and accent. I graduated high school, went off to University, married my university sweetheart, started having kids, and following my vocational pursuits. All the while my heart was being called across the seas and more specifically across the pond.

To be fair I was not apart of the world view in America and it was like trying to fit myself into a puzzle where I did not belong. I married my husband knowing that we would move abroad. We just did not realize it would take us so long to move me back home. Over that time we celebrated milestones in life, faced tragedies, and met the obstacles that would tear us apart. Fortunately what broke us did not defeat us. My heart had shattered in 2008 with the sudden loss of my father and the the start to what we thought was the end of our marriage. Broken hearts can be mended and even shattered ones can again be made whole. My heart slowly was pieced together and our love story continued as we moved across the pond. The pieces of my heart that have been scattered through out Europe have reconnected.

Our life in Europe is much different from our life in America as we have begun making our home here for our family. I am not the girl struggling to fit in to an American life, but girl of many cultures just enjoying all the facets life has to offer. My husband is not the same boy from Illinois that I met at University. He is a wanderlust expat who seems to fit better in England then back ‘home’. He adjusted more seamlessly into another country than many tourists I’ve encountered abroad.

I went from being a girl who forced a smile and said ‘I’m fine’ to being a girl who smiles and swoons over her husband even when he corrects my own pronunciation. For example when I say ‘Bay-sill’ instead of ‘Baz-ill’. I love all the cute things he does and the way he thinks as an expat living across the pond. Here we are abroad with hearts made whole and made stronger through all the challenges we have faced. I look forward to all that life has to offer in the years to come and knowing my heart is safe.

Diagram of a Third Culture Kid

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I found out about the term Third Culture Kid while I was in University and after I was married. Since this time I have continued reading, researching, and searching out more answers about being a TCK. Not only for sharing with others or for understanding of myself but because I now raise two of my own sons in a cross cultural world.

I like to write and share about my experiences growing up in my nomadic lifestyle because I hope to reach out to another person, whom like me years ago had no idea what it was to be a TCK. Nor how life impacting being a TCK was to every facet of their life.

It is all part of who I am and who I have become as a mother raising her two sons. It is why I love to move and travel. It is why I feel more comfortable in an airport than visiting family relations who have never lived abroad.

Here is my story of my realization of who I am and where I truly belong.

FALL 2003
Newlyweds and currently attending Harding University, my husband and I were excited about attending our first missions forum as we were keen to do mission work upon graduation. This was my answer to how I would get to live overseas again and I may have been a little more excited than Ryan. So excited in fact that I mistakingly I locked and shut the passenger door of our car. Which would be fine except that Ryan had stepped out to go to the bank and the car was still running with our keys in the ignition. Not to mention the bus from the University was presently waiting for the last of us stragglers to get on board to leave for the mission forum. Campus security was not going to be able to get it unlocked with the coat hanger technique and there was no spare key back at our on campus flat. The university faculty member attending the mission forum was now overseeing our ‘break into the car’ situation. He at this time was carrying his daughter’s car keys which he did not normally have on him. The were to a completely different make and model car than my husband’s red saturn coup. However the professor thought to try it and in one quick moment the car was unlocked. It was a miracle. To this day I can see no other reason for it. Perhaps it was God’s way of telling us that this weekend would be more important than we would truly realize that weekend.

Since Ryan and I had started dating were inseparable. Yes we were one of those ~~obnoxious~~ couples. As newly married I still do not see why we split up to go to different sessions at one part of the missions forum. But for whatever reason Ryan wanted to listen to one speaker and I felt strongly compelled to hear another. It was a young woman talking about growing up on the mission field and it was lead by a former missionary kid (MK). I sat near the front of the room and listened to what I thought would be an interesting foresight on being a missionary family. She started talking about her life and about the term TCK and her reactions to moving to the US. In the missionary circle, this term TCK I would learn soon after was widely known. I however grew up in a military circuit where its more uncommon to grow up on military bases overseas and not return the the US after one tour. TCK meant nothing to me until she started to explain what it meant for her ‘returning to the US’, to the home of her parents’ culture.

When she was finished I was doing all I could to hold back the tears. I remember what it was like moving to the US, and how a lifetime of moving never prepared me for how hard it would be to try to fit into that world. My own parents did not understand why it was so hard on me. After her lecture I composed myself and went to talk to her about what she had said. I told her how finally it had clicked and I felt like I knew who I was or where I belonged. That knowing I was a TCK was more impacting than I would have ever thought. She gave me a lot of comfort and information on Third Culture Kids. From there I practically ran to find my husband so that I could share with him this revelation of my life to him. I cannot remember if tears finally were shed at this moment or not. But there was definitely a release of emotion felt. I just let it all out and shared to him everything that was racing through my brain, my heart and my soul.

From then on life and the understanding of it changed for us. It is kinda hard to explain unless you have gone through the same sort of experience, whether you are a TCK or not. It was like going through life thinking I knew who I was, though I never really belonged to a country or culture fully. I never fully felt excepted by an country or culture. Moving back to the states I felt isolated, alone, and as if I was a ‘nobody from nowhere’. Now all of a sudden there is a spotlight on me and I can see clearly. I know who I am and I belong somewhere, even if it is not a ‘place’ per se but belonging to a small group of people. It was a tremendous weight lifted from my shoulders. Even though I still had a lot of emotional baggage and looking at my life to do, I felt I finally had a sense of direction to go from.

Though I had grown up as a TCK, this was the beginning of my journey as a ATCK (Adult Third Culture Kid).

The rest of the weekend was insightful and blessed. We got in touch with a group called Let’s Start Talking which sent us to Bangkok, Thailand that summer to teach English and build relationships with the Thai people. It began our life together as a married couple who would eventually keep traveling overseas until we finally made our home abroad.

A Third Culture Kid meme

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As a nomadic person by birth I have made a lot of acquaintances and friends in my thirty years of life. Whether a person comes into my life for a few minutes or a couple of years, there is one question that will always be asked.

The question:
“Where are you from?”

Of course here in England it gets slightly altered with the wording:
“Where in America are you from?”

In my first year back to England I would answer without missing a beat “I’m not.”

Which of course leads me into a much longer answer.

This photo pokes fun at my situation that is being a TCK.

I am a TCK and an Expat

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TCK (Third Culture Kid): A Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents’ culture. The TCK frequently builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture may be assimilated into the TCK’s life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background. (read more…)

Ex-Pat: An expatriate (in abbreviated form, expat) is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than that of the person’s upbringing. The word comes from the Latin terms ex (“out of”) and patria (“country, fatherland”). (read more…)

I was born and raised in Oxford, England from 1982-1984.
I went to primary school in Norfolk, England in the early nineties.
Moved back to England with my husband and sons in Brighton from 2011 – 2012.

I lived in Stuttgart, Germany in 1995 – 1998 and attend 7th & 8th grade at Patch American HS.
This photo was taken on my birthday with my friends before we went on a shopping trip.

I lived in Naples, Italy in the 90’s for 4th-6th grade and again for 9th-11th grade.
This group photo was taken at our house with our church family.

In 2002 I spent the entire summer in Australia for a church campaign group from my University
and on a lone backpacking trip up the coast from Sydney to Port Douglas.

The summer of 2004 my husband and I spent in Bangkok, Thailand for a ‘Let’s Start Talking’ campaign to teach english.
I returned to Thailand and Cambodia in 2006 for the Asian Mission Conference.

We lived on Oahu, Hawaii from 2007 – 2010
I worked as a fashion photographer, hairstylist, and airbrush makeup artist.

In December 2012 we moved to Bath, England and currently live here.
Took this photo on a timer during our first snowfall of 2013.