Letter from Ireland, pt. 2

The sense of a weight removed! A weight I didn't even know I carried. It has taken 28 years for me to come to this most simple, most obvious, and most profound realization. I am not American. When I think of it I wonder why it has taken me this long, my entire life, to discover something of such personal importance. I am not so acute, so completely out of touch with myself. I have decided on some answers.

When I say, I am not American, I am not pretending. I am not wishing I was someone else. I do not deny my past or the facts of my life. I support them. I affirm them. The amount of American time and experience is greater than the Irish, but mere quantity is nothing. A lifetime in Singapore would not make me Tai, not even in attitude and habit, if I did not allow it. Neither has a short time in Ireland made me Irish, even if I allowed every bit of it. But that time here has afforded me insight into who I was already. It has shaped me because of the resonances within me, and yes I have responded to every bit of it. My summers in Ireland, growing up, were like little pools of peace and ease in the overwhelming confusion and unease of growing up in America.

Again, I see this now; I did not see it then. I felt it. Most distinctly. And I wish I had reflected on it so that I might have saved myself some discomfort.

tbc