As I sit in the dark watching the fan on the ceiling rotate. Hitting me, then Nicole, possibly Dorien, then Rebecca. Again me, Nicole, possibly Dorien, then again Rebecca. Its 3:35 am and sleep has escaped me. I’ve been up for at least an hour stalking Facebook pages of friends back at home. Watching as I miss milestones; babies being born, friends getting married, people getting engaged, girls nights happening without me, high school graduations, people growing more and more to who God is calling them to be, and of course summer fun in the sun in Chicago.
Yes I do realize that I am traveling the world for 11 months visiting and making an impact in 11 countries. Yes I am aware that the show must go on, and that life can’t stop at home, because I have chosen to leave it behind for almost a year. Oh and doggone it I do notice that though I do get jealous when my friends go on vacations without me to beautiful places around the world, I acknowledge that I have been in and seen some of the most beautiful places and most amazing countries ever. Nevertheless, that doesn’t stop me from feeling as if I’m missing a part of me. I don’t have drastic and life-changing community at home. If I’m being completely honest with myself, before the world race community was dim for me, however I do miss it.
At home a lot of my relationships/ friendships were fluttering to nonexistence, others weren’t flourishing the way that I planned, friends kept moving clear across the country to places like Alaska, and yet I was still surrounded by a small group of friends. Friends that cared for me, friends that supported me, friends that listened to me, friends that would drop things at a drop of a dime to assist me in whatever crazy endeavor I had up my sleeve, friends that would plan crazy awesome nights at concerts, friends that would stay up all night at places like Denny’s acting silly, friends that I would randomly sit at church with till all hours of the wee morning worshiping with. Ultimately friends who loved me.
What’s the point of this long winded narrative. To be honest, right now I’m not actually sure. Maybe I just needed to “thank you for being a friend,” cliche right, or maybe I just needed to figure out that I have better friendships at home than I realized. Who knows, however, I’m pretty sure this needs to be read by someone who loves me and appreciates our friendships. This year hasn’t been easy growing, changing, being in ministry, and still trying to communicate with people back at home. Sorry most times I have failed so many of you. Your constantly asking me questions about me, half the time I don’t feel like really expressing how I feel and other times I don’t even acknowledge that I get messages. I’m sorry for the half- @$sed responses and lack of communication on my part.
I’m not one for really listening to “secular music,” but when you have teammates that walk around singing this song you can’t help but catch on to it. There is this song by Drake, for people like me I remember him as Jimmy from Degrassi (random fun fact). Anyways, I don’t know the name of it, I’m to lazy to look it up, and ultimately it doesn’t matter. The lyrics are “running in the 6 with my woes” (shout out to my friend Marisa for engraving this lyric in my head FOREVER Smh). I looked up the meaning for this specific lyric and this is what I got:
“Woe is my crew. It stands for ‘working on excellence.’ It’s just my whole brand and my whole movement and my way of life for everyone. I want everyone to work on excellence. So, all my friends are my Woes and I feel anybody working on excellence in life is a Woe in life as well.”
With that being said, I’m not sure what the next season for me looks like after the World Race, but I do know my journey isn’t ending. I know that this year I have gained a lot of new friendships, and I want them to be additions to the friendships that I already have, not replacements like I have been making them. I want to be more present in the friendships that I have at home even when I’m not at home. (Not sure how that is going to happen when I’m in Africa with no WiFi.) Ultimately I won’t be able to physically be “riding in the 6 with my woes,” but I do want to focus on working on Christ-centered excellence with my friends, no matter where we are. (Even if it is clear across a country or continents apart.) Who knows what that even looks like, but I do know what it doesn’t look like. So to whoever reads this blog and is my “home team”: people who have had my back since day 1 and even those people haven’t that consider me a friend, lets do better together. Cheesy I know. But, I promise to do better, even if you choose not to. I’m going to fight for us even if it’s a loosing battle. That’s what friends are for. 🙂 I say all this to say this, just know that,
“you’ve got a friend in me.”
Love always
B, Britt, Brittine, G, Ace, Hitta, and whatever else my friends call me 🙂
