Like flocks of birds, we migrate whenever better opportunities arise elsewhere, or in unfortunate circumstances when our home becomes endangered. I was in neither of those situations, but simply a child of parents who hopped from one country to another.

At the age of four, I started my first day of school at a British institution unable to utter a single word in English, in a country where no one other than my family spoke my native language. It took another four-year-old stealing my belongings in front of my very eyes and me not being able to complain because no one could comprehend my gibberish-sounding language for me to force myself to learn English.

Having learned English, I stopped crying at the thought of going to school, because I now had friends that I could mingle with. I began identifying with the culture and traditions of the foreign land more so than those of my native land. But right when I was at the last step of my initiation ritual into their society, like a turnip I was plucked from the ground and shipped off to yet another foreign society.

You would think that, after navigating through seven different institutions, one would have no trouble integrating into their eighth one, or that they could be considered some sort of expert on integration and adaptability. But the same thing that knocked me down as a four-year-old knocked me down again twelve years later.

“If you are from Pakistan, how do you understand English?” It did not matter that I was more proficient at speaking English than anyone else in my class but rather that I was the only one who did not speak their version of the language — their mannerisms, slang and culture. This time, not knowing the language did not necessarily entail that they could get away with stealing my belongings, but rather that they could get away with ridiculing me. My attempts at trying to fit in were not appreciated because I could not check off the language box in the application to fit into their social circle.

So I learned parts of their language and after twenty years of trial and error, I am a mixture of the different circles I tried to fit into, a concoction of languages — none of which I could say I speak perfectly — and an amalgamation of imperfect cultural values. And so if you are wondering how exactly I determined my identity after years of migrating, the truth is, I never did.

Identity can mean different things for separate groups of people. While for my parents, identity means their homeland, for me, identity simply means my personality and my experiences. And so by its very nature, based on my definition, my identity was constantly changing and shifting. But how did I make sure that I was still Myera?

Just like the little four-year-old who spoke imperfect Urdu in a toddler’s accent, 20-year-old Myera still speaks to her parents on Skype the same way. I still carry the same mischievous grin on my face every time I’m about to do something crazy. 16 years later, I still get a surge of excitement and nervousness before walking into a new class twice a year. The small things, like getting a toy from a McDonald’s Happy Meal, excite 20-year-old Myera perhaps more than they excited toddler Myera.

So when I migrate, along with my ever-changing clothes and personality, I bring my quirks and oddities with me. My friends from kindergarten and college could easily laugh about those peculiarities of mine. And so, whereas parts of my identity are molded by the societies I migrated into, other parts remain constant in the face of aging.

In some ways, I never claimed my identity when I migrated — rather, my identity claimed parts of the experiences and changes that came along with the process of migration. And the consistent parts of my identity that I have been carrying around from a young age never really needed to be claimed.