I met some lovely people on a hike the other day. I told them that I was planning to go to Montana over the summer to visit my mom’s side of the family, after having explained to them that I had grown up in Cairo. The reaction was ‘wow, those are so different from each other.’
Yeah, they are! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell people all these years. But in that moment, when my new friend reacted, where before I probably would have had a weird feeling like something was wrong, I laughed and agreed and that was it. It seems small, but such a relief I’m not trying to resolve that anymore.
This change has come over a long period of time, a result of living outside of my home countries for many years.
I spent the larger portion of the last decade desperately trying to understand how to connect, stay connected, and find my identity in both of my cultures. Heck, I even started a newsletter about how to blend my cultures, how to reconcile my cultural differences. But somehow, it’s changed and I’ve realized that I don’t need that anymore.
It turns out I never needed to find my identity. I just needed to let it shift.
I guess this is what people these days call, shedding? Letting go? Evolving?
The need to feel connected also came from a place of guilt, a deep need for validation from these cultures in order to feel like I belonged and worthy and accepted and enough. I wanted acceptance from both. I thought I could pick and choose and blend them seamlessly and effortlessly. And the more I struggled to do this, the more I felt like a failure.
I’m lucky to have had the opportunity to travel over the last 10 years, and it has allowed me to let go of this, to learn who I want to become as a person in this world, to identify with the human experience more than anything else. The ones who hold onto their cultures too tightly might also risk losing themselves to that.
I’m not denying or rejecting my cultures, but I guess I needed to detach from them in order to figure out who I am outside of them. And while they deeply informed my beliefs and values, they don’t define me.
I had a housemate some months ago who could speak Arabic and the familiarity was so comforting, and that made me really happy. It made me happy that that made me happy. I understood that some aspects of my cultures still comforted and filled me with joy and that’s the best part about growing up with different cultures. You can find some parts of them and yourself wherever you go. I still can and want to connect to my cultures, and it doesn’t have to feel like an obligation but rather like a little treat or a warm hug. I want to experience more of that going forward, while continuing to release who the world told me to be.
So the next time someone asks me ‘Do you feel more Egyptian or American?,’I think I’ll reply ‘I feel more like myself.’
Finally.
Priscilla xo