I grew up with at least a half-dozen country stations to choose from. And at least two Christian radio stations as well. Boston has no Christian radio station. It does have at least three stations in languages I don’t understand, and there’s this new part of me that is no longer surprised by them.

Then there’s a part of me – old and familiar – that comes to life when I listen to Boston’s only country radio station. At the same time, that new part of me that is shoved back to the corner of my mind.

It’s also shoved to the corner of my mind when I’m back home driving my daddy’s pickup truck to my cousin’s house with the windows rolled down and my favorite country station turned up. Everything is easy and familiar… but I feel like only a piece of me is really there.

The other day I was driving down one of the cracked and pot-holed New England roads with a friend, windows cracked, listening to that solitary country station, and chatting about the future. Rachel asked if we were going back to Georgia when we finished here. I told her I didn’t know.

Then she asked if I wanted to go back. My answer, shaky and irresolute, reminded her of “third culture kids” – a missionary phrase that describes the experience of not feeling like you belong back where you started, but don’t fully belong in your present culture. Like you belong in some other culture… a third culture.

I nearly cried when she said those words.

And I drove home wondering if that’s what this indefinable feeling is… this feeling that rises inside me and wants to go to England or Oregon or SoCal or Austin or Hawaii or New Orleans, instead of staying in Massachusetts or moving back to Georgia.

I wondered if I’ve started looking for my third culture.