When I was growing up I tried to run away more than once. I do not know if I was really expecting to get anywhere far but I was always ready to run.

In hindsight I now understand that this was probably the most dramatic way I could think of as a child to drive home to my parents how much moving around affected me.  I was not provided words for the hurt I was feeling when clearly we were supposed to be having a remarkable cross-cultural adventure together.

The first time I ran away was when I was five years old.

We had just moved to a rural village in the northern region of the West Bank of Occupied Palestine. It was an idyllic area nestled between rolling hills dotted with olive trees. The town had an intimate population of several thousand people where everyone seemed to be related to each other. It was a fairly peaceful time to live in that part of the world and there was a gentle sense of security weaved into everyday life. It was a very close knit community but we were one of two foreign families warmly welcomed to help teach at the local Latin Patriarchate School.

I hated it.

I was put into a uniform and sent to that Latin Patriarchate school to be prodded and poked by nuns who checked my hair for lice each morning (as was the daily routine for all students), and was forced to figure out how to play with kids in my grade that I didn’t even know how to communicate with. The obvious language barrier made it hard to conduct the elaborate make believe games I was used to playing on playgrounds in the USA. On the playground in this village I was mostly ogled at and mocked for being an unfamiliar outsider.

I decided I was done.

I walked into the kitchen, that we shared with the French couple in our villa, and very angrily announced to my mother that I was moving back to America to live with my grandparents. I explained my scheme to walk until I found a taxi that would take me to Jerusalem and from there I would hitch the next plane headed back over the ocean. This current living situation was NOT working.

She stared at me while stirring something in a pot on the stove and said, “ok”.

With that I decidedly marched into my room and threw a pair of underwear in a white plastic bag, along with all of my very essential stuffed animals, and stomped down the stairs. I swung open the heavy iron front door and made my way down the driveway. I passed the grape vines and giant cacti plants and found myself at the tall tree line that marked the edge of the property. I turned back and glimpsed my mother standing on the kitchen balcony. I knew she was waiting to see how serious I was about my decision so I made sure she caught my determined smirk before I turned onto the main road.

There were cars whizzing past me and a donkey cart driver stared as I happily started to put life in the village behind me. I made it pretty far out of town before my mom caught up with me and I was reluctantly dragged back to the house.

I don’t remember the immediate aftermath of the situation, but I’m sure I screamed and cried as became a custom through our big moves as a family. I know that soon after the incident they did give me my own room and space to go to when I was upset. It was a glass enclosed balcony at the back of the villa. It looked out on to a freshly tilled field and at night I could watch the moon and the stars while falling asleep.

That helped.

Eventually I did learn to acclimate very well to my surroundings. I learned Arabic fluently, played football barefoot with the neighborhood kids, antagonized farm animals with our landlord’s son my age, memorized bible passages to the nun’s satisfaction, helped harvest olives, attended weddings and baptisms and graduations and funerals, and learned traditional Palestinian folk dances. I became indistinguishable from the rest of the crowd.

Each time we moved to a different town, city, or country after this I undoubtedly had the overwhelming urge to run back to the place I had last called home. I had that urge to run back to the last version of myself. There were afternoons my mother drove in the street next to me with a van door rolled open urging me to get in and come home, or my father barring the front door telling me to stay put.

As a teenager in Cairo, Egypt this manifested into staying out late with friends as we hung out in sailboats on the Nile or went to underground concerts that carried on into the night. I liked the rebellious adolescent thrill of knowing my parents were worrying about where I was. It was a deep seated attempt to send the same message I was trying to send at age five.

I used to feel guilty about some of the things I have done and said to my parents. I have had to really foster a lot of grace and forgiveness toward myself, and apologize to my family. However, the weight of that guilt has lightened as I step back in my adulthood to better comprehend those childhood perceptions and emotions.

The author Ruth Van Reken describes leaving Africa when she was a child as “a death with no funeral”. That imagery has resonated strongly with me because every time our plane took off I knew my life in that place, and the tangible identity I had formed there, was gone forever. There was no ceremony to mourn the loss or acknowledge the terror of no longer having a firm foothold on [who] I was.

I am learning to affirm and unpack the unresolved grief that traveled with me, heavier than any suitcase, to each new location. I am learning to honor its essential role in my Third Culture Kid experience.

As I have processed all of this I have also unearthed a massive amount of gratitude intertwined with each rough transition. I ultimately appreciate my parents and how they chose to raise me.  We did have the rich and unforgettable adventures that most people must initially picture when I tell them I grew up in the Middle East. My tantrums were not a result of being ungrateful. In fact, the opposite is true. It is because my family encouraged me to embrace, and enjoy, each culture so fully that made it so devastating to leave. My grief is an affirmation of how deeply I had learned to love each place I lived.

I now realize that I have been forged through both my grief and gratitude into someone rooted in a home much more abstract than flag, soil, or language.

The opportunity to deeply experience so many different cultures, speak many different languages, worship in many different contexts, and share meals with everyone from ambassadors in mansions to refugees who have walked through wars is what has made me the dynamic Christian, activist, global citizen, and woman that I am now.

I am grounded and firmly at home within myself.