Here is what happens before each attempt to write this:
I find myself at Safeway, dismayed that every food package is in English. A world map appears my head and a red dot is over Washington State. I start longing for that dot to be in Quiche or Chiang Mai. I feel sad, then guilty for having neglected my blog. Then I get inspired: this will be the day. I go home and open my laptop and write. Then I stop writing because I suddenly don’t know which things to say, because there could be so much to say. And then I think of other things I should be doing, and what I could say gets pushed aside.
I’ve been home for five and a half months. Five months. Five months is enough time to live in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Bulgaria, Albania, and Zambia, with time still to eat at Chili’s in Houston and explore a castle in Kosovo.
I said in my last post in December, “My travel might be over for now, but my blogs aren’t.” I wanted to document my reentry process. I like having the records and my heart comes out more easily on paper than verbally, a trait I learned is common for my Meyers-Brigg personality type, a subject Racers never tire of (and often use as an excuse to not be on time to things or talk to strangers).
But instead of telling you all about my dismay at the dismal “Asian Food” sections at Safeway and my wonder at the washing machine my family owns in our carpeted and wood floored house, I’ve been silent. I don’t quite know why.
Many of you have asked me if I’d throw a party and show pictures and tell stories. I haven’t yet. Even more of you have told me to compile my blogs into a book. I haven’t.
I think one of the reasons I haven’t written lately is that it’s hard to process the Race when it’s done. It is a lot to go through. It is a big thing geographically, culturally, socially, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. And it takes time to adopt a different lifestyle after that.
Over a year ago, in El Salvador, Jacob and I were sitting under a hot tin roof after hauling a massive, heavy vat of tomatoes in water into a nearby village to a woman who owned a meat grinder that could also be used to make tomato sauce. We sat in dirty white plastic chairs and watched geckos scuttle and an out of date calendar flutter on the chipped blue walls. Jacob told me that culture shock often doesn’t set in until after three months in a place.
“At first, people are usually pretty good at adjusting to a new environment, because it’s so fresh and exciting,” he said. “But once it doesn’t feel like an adventure anymore, it gets harder and that’s when you get people who want to go home.” I see what he meant, and so do most people who come home from a long time away.
After blogs about packing lists and blogs with purposely misleading titles like “I’m Falling in Love With the Man of My Dreams!” that you think are about people but are about God or cute children, one of the most common World Race blogs I’ve found is the Reverse Culture Shock Blog.
These blogs describe returned Racers weeping before fancy dishwashers, scoffing at expensive church buildings, and wanting to sleep on the floor. They are about how Racers wish they could go back on the field and live out of a backpack, giving feedback to their teammates late into the night (okay, maybe not the last one).
Reentry hasn’t been as traumatic as I expected, but I still experience those things. Department stores are hard. I can take about twenty minutes in a department store before I need to get out and not see so many expensive clothes I am sure were made by people being taken advantage of in some of the countries we went.
And most of my delicacy around the topic of bodily functions has deteriorated, leaving me with an arsenal of tactless facts like “It’s healthier to squat than sit on a toilet” and “I might have a parasite from Lake Malawi but it won’t show up for 7 years.” This often happens after leaving department stores.
I don’t put ice in my drinks anymore. I lost my sweet tooth. My parents no longer trust my culinary discretion. Mushy fruit, bread with only a little mold, two week old soup, stale Cheetos… there’s nothing I am averse to anymore. A common conversation in our home is this:
“Chelsea, how long has this fried egg been out?”
“I don’t know. Don’t throw it away. I’ll eat it.”
“It looks old. Why don’t you make another egg?”
“Don’t waste it! I’ll eat it!”
“Why don’t I put it in the fridge? It looks tired.”
“Oh, it’ll be fine! I’ve eaten worse.”
When I insist on not refrigerating something or lamely state “I’ve eaten worse,” the conversation is usually over and I find myself throwing away the egg and making a new one. I ate a bad fried egg when we were leaving Mozambique and once was enough, when I stop and think about it.
My dreams are World Race flavored. They’re of missionaries coming to my house, wherein I put wooden stools in the front yard and give them tea and sugarcane. Or I dream of flying over the Zambezi River and planning the next off day with Tony my real-life teammate-turned-boyfriend. Or I dream of Seth Barnes himself sending Racers through an obstacle course in a warehouse (not sure what to do with that one).
These parts of living in America can be painful and confusing in the moment but funny afterwards. The culture shock Jacob talked about really surfaces in a different way: the hardest part about coming home from the Race is simply that I’m not on the Race anymore and I’m doing different things now.
It’s just that last year was so big, it’s hard to remember all of that in an instant when I’m suddenly aimless and confused. I have so many memories I never even wrote about that sneak up when I turn on my car or eat Oreos or do laundry. These surprise memories make me happy and very sad. They make me nostalgic for the life I had that has concluded.
Sometimes I don’t know why I feel upset, but I forget that I was gone for nearly a year. I forget that I lived in so many places. I forget that it’s understandable to miss it all, that what we all went through was real and not just a World Race flavored dream.
So, what to do with all this?
Tony sent me a text recently that said, “It’s been 150 days since the Race ended.” 150 days, which will become a year, which will become two years. Time goes fast.
Something I am learning about reentry right now is that reentry is not just reentry. It’s also the start of something new. These 150 days and counting are not all about us coming back to America and crying in grocery stores. If we treat the start of this next chapter like a drawn out end to the last one, we’re missing something. We are making the Race a stopping point and not a springboard.
Yes, you have to mourn its end. But you also need to have your eyes open to the world around you, which is where you are stationed and ministering this month. The ministry and placement probably looks different, but it is where God has you, so look around. Think the way you were taught to on the Race. See what’s going on. See where you can serve. See where you can learn. See where you can leave behind your comfort zone. Think about your long term plan but not at the cost of abandoning the days God’s given you, the mornings of which are full of new mercies. This is what I’ve been working on.
I’ve also been playing with this idea of living like a traveler at home. You know how when you go somewhere new, you want to learn about it, explore it, and see famous landmarks? You know how it’s a little bit easier to see inconveniences and awkward conversations and simple chores as adventures, because they’re happening somewhere new? You know how it’s natural to just look around and appreciate where in the world you are, even if you’re not doing much of anything important at the moment? What if we tried doing that in the places with which we are most familiar? I think it would lead to some big adventures and amazing opportunities indeed.
