I cut an onion. Tears ran down my face from the onion juice spraying into my eyes. My dull knife slipped as the onion layer detached from the sister skin below it. I pushed the outer layer back in place. I didn’t have time to inspect each layer and enjoy the milk-like-onion juice pouring out from the severed ends. I needed to finish the soup and chop my onion. I was a Third Culture Kid (TCK) and that was it…or so I believed. Scientists like Ruth Van Reken coined the term to try to define those of us who grew up outside of our parents’ culture. They noticed similarities between us. Like a tree frog, we changed colors according to our environment. It is an essential skill, they had concluded, to not be defined as an outsider (although each of us knows that’s what we are). Having lived in the Middle East for most of my childhood while having Americans for parents, I fit squarely into their conclusions. Each time I went to a social event, I watched how much food people put on their plate. I took note as to what utensils they began to eat with. Chopsticks for the cabbage. Fingers for the chicken. A spoon for the rice. I listened to the conversation around me and memorized how forward a person’s reply or suggestions were. I mimicked other people so much that I wondered what my culture was. Am I normally a forward person, or do I beat-around-the-bush when I talk? But I was a TCK. That was my onion’s skin. A confusion of cultures. Arab and American. What else would I expect? Later, I exchanged my TCK clothes with Adult Third Culture Kid (ATCK) clothes. I moved to the States, went to college, graduated, and found a job. I planned to adapt. After all camouflaging within strange and new cultures was my life’s occupation. I went to church. The auditorium was always crowded. People all around me talked and laughed. Children ran through the adults playing tag. I needed to find a quiet place to sit and observe my surroundings. But no one else was sitting. They were all in deep conversations. How did they do it? How did they know what to talk about? How could they hear or concentrate with all this noise? Silence and uncomfortable glances met me when I didn’t initiate giving fellow church-goers a hug. “I think they are expecting me to greet them, but I only seem to realize it after they have moved on to talk to another person. “Why can’t I figure out this American culture? What has happened to my adaptability skills?” As a child, my parents had always led conversations. I just listened in comfortable silence. Adults had led the greetings; I just needed to mimic it back. People informed me that I was shy. I wasn’t. Inside my head I was brave and outspoken. But my mouth could not seem to speak the thoughts that filled my brain. Every time two eyes focused on me waiting for a story or an answer, a shot of adrenaline hit my brain head on. My beautiful thoughts scattered into a thousand pieces. The words (if any) came out in a jumble. “This is my cousin,” A friend told me, “He is an ATCK like you.” With a dread-filled smile I shook his hand. He told stories of traveling around the country in an old rickety van that barely drove. “What about you? I bet you have TCK stories to share.” I didn’t. I should’ve…I was also an ATCK. But I didn’t…What was wrong with me? In the airplane, on an ATCK adventure, I watched a movie based off a real story called Temple Grandin. Grandin had Autism. She struggled to understand the social nuances of the people around her. One scene showed her in her room after a social party. She rolled around on her bed. Grabbing her head with her hands, she yelled at her mother in frustration, “I hate social parties. People always give me strange looks.” * I felt drops of saltwater drip down my face as I watched Temple’s agony. “I am not alone. Temple understands how I feel. Except for me, no one can see it. It’s all inside.” I began to research. I read that autism is a neurological difference that people are born with. One of its distinguishing factors is the lack of social skills. People with Autism tend to have a harder time picking up social cues, like hugs and greetings, specifically while in stressful environments also known as crowded noisy places. "I can’t be autistic. I wasn't diagnosed with it as a kid. I am an ATCK, that's why I don't understand people." The effect of Temple’s story on my normally hidden emotions was too much to push away with my former theories. I kept on reading. Statistics showed that girls were more likely to fall through the diagnostic cracks. Had I fallen through a crack? I laid down my dull onion knife. “Life is too short to haphazardly chop off my finger from eyes blinded by tears. What professional can I ask to find out if there is a layer of autism in this onion?
Taking a knife sharpener out of the drawer, I settled into a kitchen chair. What other unique layers of myself could I possibly find by taking time to be curious?