GIVE YOURSELF AN UNFAIR ADVANTAGE
GIVE YOURSELF AN UNFAIR ADVANTAGE
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The Moment I Finally Embraced My Mixed Identity
There it was. The moment I didn’t even know I was expecting. The moment I would finally feel great when saying the words ‘I’m a proud mix’. But the journey was long, and the confusion was real - for years. This personal journey highlights the pride and self-acceptance I achieved after years of feeling caught between cultures.
Gal Szmelcman Sela
Monday, July 29, 2024
Last Friday, during the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics, I experienced one of the most magical moments of my life. It was a dream come true (and I promise to write about it in more detail soon). But one thing happened that has never happened before: I felt extremely proud to be a mix!
For years, this was my ‘weakness’. Or at least, that’s what I thought.
(Photo by KoolShooters on Pexels)
I remember quite vividly the summer of 2001. Besides the fabulous songs that played on my Discman (hello nostalgia) ranging from ‘Love Don’t Cost a Thing’ to ‘Les Rois du Monde’ from the French musical Romeo and Juliet that I loved so much!
We traveled with the entire family to visit Israel after yet another year in France. And I decided to go spend some time with my ‘girls.’
As I’m typing this right now, I can’t help but laugh thinking of this group of 11-year-old girls, thinking we know it all and are so ‘mature’.
It didn’t even take an hour...
…from the moment my parents dropped me at one of my friends' houses. One short hour. It started with some excited screams, hugs, and ‘Can’t believe you are here!’ But quickly after, I got the first ‘Ohh, you’re so French now.’ At first, I didn’t pay much attention to this, but as the evening continued, I couldn’t help but feel so out of place. I got laughed at, kind of bullied, for my clothing style, my lack of knowledge of the local TV shows, my CDs that were different from theirs… I was the ‘French’ one.
I felt bad. Different.
Probably ashamed. I remember playing a French song for the girls, wanting to let them into my world, and they kept on laughing.
Yes, I did have a nice time that weekend and was really happy seeing them. Plus, we did some ‘grown-up stuff’ like going late at night to buy ice cream in the city center. Woooohoo, crazy! But by the end of that weekend, I felt like something was really wrong with me.
When I came back to Paris after those holidays, I had this gut feeling that those girls and I were history. They were my besties for a couple of years, and my Frenchness wasn’t welcomed. Back then, I couldn’t say that we just grew apart. If I would have, it would have been fine I guess. But instead, I was sad and angry that I was losing my friends over something I wasn’t happy about—becoming French.
Merde. Well, if I’m becoming French, let’s be one.
Easier said than done. I didn’t have many French friends at the time (thinking about it, I don’t have many French friends today either—something to work on for sure… another article I should write about maybe?). But although the few local friends I had from my amazing Gymnastics team loved me and accepted me for who I was. For them too, I was the ‘stranger.’ They would ask me how to say things in Hebrew and to introduce them to Israeli songs—and I felt like one of them. Until one day, someone told me, ‘Ohh, you’re too Israeli.’
(Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels)
Imagine my confusion.
I was probably about 12 years old. I got ‘kicked out’ of my group for being ‘too French,’ and now I’ve been flagged as ‘too Israeli.’ So what am I?!
Being a teen is hard enough. Being a teen that can’t find their place because they are too much of this and too much of that is double trouble. I hated this feeling. ‘Why couldn’t I be normal like the others?’
I was jealous of so many of my friends at the Israeli school who never made French friends. I was jealous of the French friends who had never been the ‘stranger’ in the group.
And this feeling didn’t really go away as I grew up.
I was always ‘too Israeli for the French and too French for the Israeli.’ So I made it my trademark.
‘This is me; I’m a mix,’ I kept saying out loud. But inside, oh boy, I was a mess.
When I first moved to London, this mess got even bigger. I was now too French and too Israeli for the Brits. Let me tell you a funny anecdote; some friends I made at Uni had so much trouble pronouncing my first name ‘Gal’— when they said it it sounded more like goallllll with the British accent, while others laughed that I’m a Gal—as in a woman. Until one day, one of my friends came to me and said, ‘You Israelis have names with meaning, what’s yours?’ I laughed and told him mine means a wave. From that day, and for the next three years, I became ‘Wavey.’ A mix.
I gotta tell you—I loved that name. I felt like it connected with my water spirit perfectly, and it made people smile when I told them my name (instead of the weird, confused face I used to get before).
But this confusion inside me got even messier. I don’t even go by my real name anymore? And when people asked me where I’m from, I never knew how to respond. ‘You mean born?’, ‘raised?’, ‘where I was last year?’ or ‘where do I feel I’m from?’ Ohh, tough one!
Eventually, I accepted the fact that I’m a mix.
I learned to embrace it. But every time someone told me ‘Ohhh, you’re so French,’ or ‘Ohhh, you’re so Israeli,’ and later in life I even got the ‘Funny, you’re so Brit now’ (probably when I showed my beer-drinking skills haha)—every time, it felt like a big punch in my chest. And I couldn’t breathe for a couple of seconds. Because it never felt like a compliment. It always felt like a criticism, a ‘finger-pointing’ moment, or worse—an insult.
I remember one time, years after I moved back to Israel (that time as an adult), I got into an argument with someone about a topic I honestly can’t remember. But what I’ll never forget is the second he told me:
‘You’ll never get it, after all, you’re not really Israeli.’
And this was not a big punch in my chest. This was a total knockout. I felt so insecure in my identity. Who the hell am I????
If you know me a little, you probably know that this last decade I invested quite a lot of time in self-development. Growth. My inner self. To heal some parts that were broken (for different reasons than this article topic), to grow, work on my identity, stretch my mind and horizon, strengthen my confidence, resilience, and all that jazz.
It’s funny how sometimes you don’t realize how far you’ve come until you do.
And I did, just the other day, during the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics in Paris.
(Photo by Gal Szmelcman Sela During Paris 2024 Olympics)
I stood on one of the most beautiful bridges of Paris, just across the Louvre, and once the volunteering team and myself finished placing everyone in their seats, we had the opportunity to watch the incredible show that Paris 2024 organized. We started seeing the boats full of athletes coming by, just below our bridge, one after another—pure joy.
When I spotted the Israeli team from afar, I got overly excited. And when their boat crossed our bridge, I cheered them on—so loud! Screaming, waving, clapping - the whole shebang!
I felt so proud.
A couple of moments after, the talented Axelle Saint-Cirel, a 28-year-old mezzo-soprano, sang La Marseillaise on the rooftop of the Grand Palais in a picturesque moment. And my heart expanded. I started to sing with her, and every other French person standing beside me, the French Anthem.
And I felt proud.
Soon after, one spectator told me how amazing my English accent is and thanked me for my service. I felt proud.
Here it was.
The first time in my life I truly felt proud to be a mix!
Not just saying it out loud anymore.
Actually feeling it.
I’m a mix of cultures,
a mix of languages,
a mix of experiences,
a mix of traditions,
a mix of habits.
I’m not ‘too’ of one thing or another. I’m me! A Mix.
And that’s my superpower.
Written by Gal Sela-Szmelcman
Founder of Smoozitive and creator of SYLA app - the #1 app for those living abroad. Gal is a positive psychology coach, expert in cultivating a positive mindset and uplifting others. She has been an expat since a young age, and relocated over 8 times. Her most recent move to France in 2020 provided an opportunity to focus her work on those living abroad, as she understands the challenges they face.
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