A Story of Growing Up in Istanbul and Moving Abroad

I am living in my middle age and sometimes I find myself thinking about this question: if I was born in a different environment, what is the possibility that I would be the same person today? It is hard to answer this question because your identity is not only determined by where you are born, what your family’s origin is, what your native language is. Besides this question, I strongly believe that those factors have influenced my social status, my opportunities, my preferences, and the way I live today.

I was born in Istanbul, Turkey. I come from a white race and a middle-class family. We lived near the sea, with a beautiful view of the Bosphorus surrounded by happy and busy people at the same time who were always looking for better living conditions and opportunities. I spent most of my life in Istanbul, a big cosmopolitan city with an overpopulation of different cultures, histories, and races, I can say I was luckier than others, as I had more opportunities to go to a good school and have good teachers. My father and mother worked as teachers, and we had a small family business full of school supplies and toys. This made my childhood very sophisticated and happy, but at the same time it required more control and hard work at school as a child of teachers.

We were a big family, including my two sisters: one who is older than me by less than two years, and the other who was born nearly a decade after me, my grandparents, aunts, cousins.  We traveled a lot, swam a lot, and even played table tennis on our terrace endless weekends. I was very curious and naughty, unlike my sisters. My parents always told those memories as bittersweet ones. One time, I sneaked into the captain’s desk in a ferry without my parents’ permission. They were worried that I would fall off the ferry, until they heard the announcement that their child was safe and sound with the captain. Our house was always busy with my parents’ friends and our neighbors and friends. This environment and the memories made my childhood unique and exciting, peaceful and enough to make me smile today.

Besides these happy childhood memories, I tried to develop myself in every stage of my life and never stopped. Spending most of the time in a developing country whose original language is not English put pressure on me for most of my life, from my teenage years to adulthood, to look for better opportunities to live, to work, to study, not only for myself but also for my family and my daughter. Today I have many accomplishments in my life. I earned a bachelor’s degree with honors. I established a successful career in big multicultural companies as a manager. I am a mom of a college student, traveling to more than 20 countries and living in 3 different countries, even on different continents. I still live abroad.

When I visit my country and some places from my childhood, I do not feel alienated or distant from them. They are living with me in a way, maybe in my taste or accent when speaking English or my outfit or my reaction to some new things that are different from my culture. I have changed a lot over the years, but all these experiences are a part of me as a part of my identity because I was born here, live here, fall in love here, and still, I have friends and family here. This environment that motivated the whole population to live for better opportunities made me who I am. So, this is not a complete answer to my question above. But I know that my full identity definition is still ongoing, and I am not close enough to finish.