Third Culture Kids

I am
a confusion of cultures.
Uniquely me.
I think this is good
because I can
understand
the traveller, sojourner, foreigner,
the homesickness
that comes.
I think this is also bad
because I cannot
be understood
by the person who has sown and grown in one place.
They know not
the real meaning of homesickness
that hits me
now and then.
Sometime I despair of
understanding them.
I am
an island
a United Nations.
Who can recognise either in me
but God?

"Uniquely Me" by Alex Graham James. As reproduced in Third Culture Kids by D. Pollock and R. Van Reken.

Thanks to Tanja for introducing me to what I am and why I am restless, for the gentle pointer that explains why now, when I was so ready to settle down and the floor moved from under my feet, I am so ready to go again, yet so sad to leave.

Or as the beautiful rough sleeper Jock put it "you like us, because you are one of us. We have no home."