mmh Blog

Sitting at the airport with my red suit-case and a gingerbread latte (with cream!) I feel very calm. Airports are second nature to me. As a mixed kid I’ve always travelled a lot. My Italian grandparents live in a city 5h away from where my family lives and my Egyptian grandparents well … live in Egypt! Since a very young age, I flew a lot, took many trains and drove through long stretches of roads. I travelled with my family and alone, with friends and boyfriends. And many of the places I travelled to and from, I call home.

Travelling is (unsurprisingly!) one of the best aspects of cultural “mixdeness”. In all this moving back and forth, you end up mastering languages along the road, feeling at home in more than one place and embracing as yours more than one culture. And I’m not even starting to talk about food…

However, the nomadic side of a mixed heritage also involves effort. Which family are we going to visit this holiday? For how long? Are we going together or separate?

I felt so lucky to have been able to visit my family in Italy this year, though bitterness remained because my partner couldn’t come with me for work reasons. My happiness was also clouded because I was not able to visit Egypt during New Years Eve, and a part of me is scared to see that side of me slowly fade away.

Being mixed goes hand in hand with travelling or better, it goes hand in hand with thoughts, hope, wish and desire of travelling to be able to see your loved ones. It also goes hand in hand with sadness, frustration and tiredness when travelling feels too much, or too little. I just said goodbye to my parents and brother and although I’ve done it ten times already in the last year, it never gets easier; I wish I could pack them all with me!

If you are a mixed-heritage kid or are in a mixed relationship and you catch yourself thinking: “Oh God, why does it need to be so difficult?”, do not despair. We’ve all been there. Being mixed is a special special blessing, but no one said it was easy.

Mixed and proud, always!