The first day at a new school is always a time filled with excitement and nervousness. In 2015, my family and I moved to Taiwan after spending the first six years of my life growing up in upstate New York. The loud, busy city of Taipei was very different from the sleepy little town where I grew up. Walking through the front gate of my new school, I couldn’t help but feel intimidated by the massive building looming before me. Taipei American School was twice as nice and three times as big as my old public elementary school. Breathing in the humid Taiwan air, I thought about how nervous I was to meet my teacher and make new friends; however, this excitement would not last long.

I had never lived outside the US before. As I was still very young, I had also never even heard of Taiwan before moving here and was shocked to learn that people did not speak English all the time. Outside of the classroom, during lunch and recess, my classmates were not required to speak English, and many of them spoke Mandarin, the language they grew up speaking at home. This was something I had never experienced before. I had never experienced a difference between myself and my peers as extreme as a language barrier, and this made not just the first day, but the first few years of my life in Taiwan a lot more difficult than I was expecting.

One specific instance, when it became apparent that I was different, was in middle school. My friends and parents successfully pressured me into joining a soccer team not involved with the school. Soccer was not my sport, and I had not played since elementary school, but I begrudgingly agreed to try it out. I not only hated soccer, but I was also bad at it, an unfortunate combination for somebody joining a soccer team. Every practice, I felt self-conscious of myself and my abilities, and despite having friends there, felt like the odd one out. Up until this point, I understood that not everybody was the same, but this was one of the first times when having differences made me feel isolated.

I’ve always had a difficult time understanding what “home” means to me. Is it North Carolina, where I was born? Is it New York, the home of my earliest memories, and the place that I would say I’m “from”? Is it Taiwan, where I have spent 10 years of my life going to school and making many of my most significant relationships? Is it Utah, where I go visit grandparents and older siblings every summer?

Each of these places means something special to me, and at the same time, it feels wrong to choose simply one to call home. Because I go back to the US each summer, flip-flopping between my life in Taiwan and America each year often makes me question where exactly I fit in. After all, if I’m not like the people where I live, and I’m not like the people where I am from, then who am I?

When I was younger, like many children, I was scared of standing out, of not being like everyone else. This is still something that I, along with many others, struggle with at times. That said, my life experiences have had an important impact on me. I know that it's okay to be different and that our differences are what make us distinct and interesting. And the more I explore my identity and the unique identity of each individual in my life, the more I appreciate that the answer to who we are is not rooted in any single aspect of where we come from. After all, our differences benefit everyone around us, and we don’t have to have just ONE home.

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