Identity Issues

When have you lived somewhere? After one month? After six months? After you have a job? After you have citizenship?

Every summer for the past three years I have been to Madrid at least four times. I’ve spent a lot of time in the center. I know where to go for cheap Chinese food, the best shopping deals and English movies. But that doesn’t mean that I’ve lived there.

This summer for the first time I was actually legally employed in Spain as an EU citizen. I got a social security number and started paying taxes. Does having a job  mean I lived there?

Or is living in a country doing things that you wouldn’t do on a normal vacation? For instance cooking at home, getting a haircut and buying soap and shampoo – all of which I did in Spain. Have I lived there? The answer is still unclear. 

Whereas I would say that I’ve certainly lived in Reutov. It’s only been about six weeks, but here I have a full time job, a local phone number and I cook for myself in my apartment. But I won’t be here forever and I’m certainly not a local, but I definitely have lived here.

All this gets me thinking about how long it is before you can call yourself a resident or a local of somewhere. I’ve spent the last four years of my life living in Toronto. But does that make me a Torontonian? Because I’ve lived most of my life in Calgary and most of my belongings are still in Calgary. Yet I tell everyone abroad I’m from Toronto just to make it easier, but I don’t know if I’m really ‘”from there’”.

Carrie Bradshaw, character from Sex and the City, said in one episode that you have to live in New York for ten years before you can call yourself a New Yorker! I don’t know whether that applies to all cities or just to NYC snobs. But it makes you wonder how long you have to be somewhere before you can say you been there, lived there and are from there?

Coming Soon: Marveling at the Metro