Attempt at rediscovering what it means to be British
How a silent disco sent me into a full-blown cultural identity crisis
From the pier, I watched them dance.
Barefoot and laughing, they waded into the freezing English Channel. The music, silent to me, reached each of them through headphones, so that they all danced in unison.
Amused, I turned to my friend.
“Are they high?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “They’re just happy.”
It had been a few years since I’d been to England during the summertime, and many more since I’d spent a sun-soaked afternoon in Brighton, the backdrop of my youth. I’d forgotten how it felt to be steeped in that free-spirited student culture—to wade into murky, cold seawater just for the hell of it. I’d forgotten about the seize-the-moment spirit of a British summer, and our readiness to find beauty in grey water and pebble beaches.
Watching the silent disco, I became suddenly aware of something I’d lost: a sense of true belonging.
Over the coming few weeks in my homeland, I would learn there were many things I’d forgotten about being British.
There was the quick wit of seemingly everyone I encountered, like the train conductor making his way down the carriage, glancing at each passenger’s ticket before moving on.
“How do you remember who you’ve already checked?” I asked, impressed.
“It’s easy now,” he said. “Gets harder by the end of the journey.”
“Maybe National Rail will give you AI face recognition glasses soon,” I joked.
“I don’t know,” he quipped. “We only just got electricity.”
There was the total absence of tipping culture, and the disbelief on servers’ faces as my husband and I tapped away 20 per cent extra out of habit.
I noticed, too, the readiness of certain men to whip off their shirts at the first sign of sunshine (in temperatures still considered sweater weather in Southern California).
I marvelled at the stifling humidity, the sudden showers and the roaring evening thunderstorms. And, even in the fickle English heat, the already sunburned bodies.
There were the convivial acknowledgements from those encountered on my many walks: the hellos, the how-do-you-dos, and the customary how-about-the-weathers.
I found myself tapping my toes to the rhythm of this cordial goodwill. I was always ready with a smile and a wave. Always ready to declare myself a compatriot.
I am one of you.
I am of this earth.
Just because I’ve been gone eleven years doesn’t mean I haven’t missed it.
Beneath my yearning to be welcomed home, there was, I knew, the same detachment I’d felt on Brighton pier:
After all this time, do I still belong?
Despite my self-imposed alienation, I found comfort in my countrymen’s greetings, beyond which stretched the English landscape. A landscape that calls to me, always, hypnotic and dreamlike in its song.
The ceilings made from billowy clouds. The thousand flecks of watercolour wildflowers. The greens wrought in every shade imaginable. The rolling hills and jagged rocks and houses so old they seem to grow from the ground itself.
It was all still there. Still mine, in a way.
I am of this place. And yet, I’m from somewhere else now, too. My decade in America has stitched me into a cultural patchwork quilt.
I wanted to belong in the country that raised me. But lately, the famously passive affectations of British culture have begun to feel constraining, like wrenching on a familiar coat I’ve long since outgrown. I tried to say “sorry” in all the right places, to keep up with the requisite small talk, to not seem boastful, overly-enthusiastic, or, heaven forbid, speak too loudly. But there were moments I wondered if I still knew the rules. Or worse—moments I knew them, but no longer wanted to play along.
Can we all be a little more direct? I wondered.
Can we just ask for what we want?
And for the love of God, can we stop bloody apologising for nothing?
The Britishness in me hasn’t vanished. I still apologise when someone bumps into me. Still wholeheartedly believe in the fairness of queuing. Still find it hard to admit when someone’s hurt my feelings. Now it’s just jarring with my newborn disdain for a practice at which Brits excel: self-deprecation.
This tendency to always put ourselves down has got me nowhere in life. But if I’m not fully British anymore, I’m nowhere near American either. I live somewhere in between—a tea-drinking, positive-affirmation-loving, California-girl contradiction.
And it’s not without consequence.
I think about my parents constantly. About the life I didn’t build near them. About how, no matter how often I call or visit, I am a daughter who lives 5,000 miles away. This knowledge sits between us—often unspoken, sometimes not, but always present.
This isn’t the parent-daughter relationship they imagined. No lazy Sunday pub lunches. No quick pop-ins for tea. No chances to babysit my future kids while I’m making dinner. Just FaceTime freezes, time zone maths, and the gnawing guilt that I’m missing years I’ll never get back.
Sometimes I try to reassure myself that this is just what happens when you grow up. You make dreams of your own. You move away. You chase the life that calls you.
But other times, it feels like I’ve made a terrible trade: a little more sun, in exchange for being a good daughter.
Three weeks have passed since I returned to LA, and in quieter moments, my mind drifts back to that first glimpse of the sea, to the dancers on the pier.
I stayed watching that day, unsure of my place, unsure of myself. But later in my trip, I found my own moments to wade into the ocean. Again and again, I let the sea submerge my feet, calves, and knees. I braced myself for the chill. I laughed into the wind. I ran through the surf with the gleeful dogs of local strangers.
I felt at home. And also—not quite.
Because the truth is, I don’t know where I belong.
England, where I came from?
Or America, where I’ve built a life?
For now, I exist in an in-between.
Always arriving somewhere.
Never quite returning.
Have you ever felt caught between two places, or like you no longer fully belong anywhere? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
Oh, and don’t forget to tap the 🧡 button on your way out.
(Unhearted posts are terribly draughty.)
I suspect this feeling of not-quite-belonging is common to many of us, regardless of where we are or where we come from.
I liked this because I’m American and was born in America and think I have a decent grasp of all that, but I’d noticed Brits seem substantially nicer. That is through movies only since I’ve never been there. So I liked reading about it. I sometimes wonder if part of it is because in part of Queen Elizabeth always setting the example of how to be, but I suppose it’s rather rude of me to figure that minus her civilization would fall apart. It’s just typical of me to wonder why they seem better than us. I apologize a thousand times a day and not because I’ve done very much wrong.