identity

Identity.

A concept I've always struggled with. Battled with. Fought against.

Growing up Catholic in rural Northern Ireland raises all sorts of issues- British, Irish, Northern Irish...? Protestant, Catholic.... nationalist, loyalist, monarchist, republican?

I rejected it all from an early age and simply wanted to escape. First to London where I initially embraced the diversity and stimulation provided by the size of the population and the great variety of cultural influences. However I felt confused by the labels I was given; too 'Irish' in London (regardless of my British nationality), too 'British' when I would go back to Northern Ireland... Either way I felt out of place. As a student of foreign languages I had always wanted to leave the UK and I began to realise that, despite my initial enthusiasm for multi-cultural and exciting London, in comparison to quiet, rural County Down, it was actually the British Isles as a whole that I just didn't feel comfortable with. Spending a year in Argentina confirmed what I had always felt. I just don't belong in the United Kingdom. Subsequently spending two years in Portugal only reinforced my sense of utter disconnection from the UK. Culturally I feel European. Or at least I believed I did.

Having spent four months living in Germany, working in Luxembourg and frequently travelling to Belgium has given me another insight into my own identity, preferences and comfort zone; I feel most at home in 'Latin' countries. When I would visit Spain or Italy from Portugal I would not feel the enormous, unsettling cultural jolt I would subsequently experience when crossing the invisible (or perhaps it is visible, perhaps the alps are the major cultural border between Latin and Germanic Europe) barrier seperating the (mostly) Protestant, Germanic, Northern European countries from the Catholic, Latin, Southern nations.

Argentina, of course, is a Latin America country. One which shares a lot of culture and history with Spain and Italy. I found it interesting that when spending time in Brazil, I felt much less at home in comparison to Argentina. I found Brazil to be very North-American in outlook. The USA was the guiding cultural and economic influence whereas Argentina predominantly looks towards Southern Europe.

I'm missing Portugal desperately. It is not perfect as a country. One swaps the Northern organisational aptitudes for chaos, bureaucracy and a general lack of efficiency. However the trade off, in general, I am beginning to think, is worth it. Food and weather have a huge impact, of course. I miss sunshine and Portuguese food. But I also miss people. Relationships. And communication. I miss the way people act and interact in Argentina and Portugal. I miss melodrama, cheek kissing (as it starts to feel that it is representative of my presence being acknowledged and appreciated and of properly greeting someone), body language, hand gestures, and physically demonstrative interactions. This might all sound very minor and trivial but, when one does not feel at home, comfortable and at ease in the country they were born in and subsequently searches for and successfully finds places in the world where they do, this feeling of belonging, or perhaps more accurately, feeling comfortable and satisfied and happy and content, becomes incredibly important. More important that nationality or identity.

Case in point. If you told me I could never again visit the British Isles in my lifetime, to be perfectly honest, I wouldn't really mind. If you told me, however, that I could never again set foot in Portugal and/or Argentina I would be devastated. That, to me, is what matters when it comes to identity. It's where you love, where you feel happy and where you want to be that matters. Not where you were born.