I’m sitting in a coffee shop called Anthem – once a Forza – in downtown Puyallup. Is this really where I am? I haven’t been to this city, or even this state, in three years. These places, my old stomping grounds, they seem unchanged. Coming back here is like riding a bicycle – it’s something I’ll never really forget. I know my way around, know where I’m going, I do things without noticing or thinking about them. It’s the opposite of the way I spent my last year, when everything was fluctuating and changing at the drop of a hat. But here? I know this place, its streets and stores, its shortcuts and standards.
America is so familiar. As of right now, I have not had a breakdown, and in the past two days I haven’t been too overwhelmed. Things like Junior Mints, free cold water at restaurants, and understanding the conversation of passerby throw me off a little, but it doesn’t seem that drastic. I was out of the country for almost a year, and it seems to be business as usual here. I hit the ground in LAX after 17 hours on two separate planes, and a layover in Tokyo between them. It was like walking in a daze; I felt almost like I was dreaming.
I feel like I don’t know how to put myself back into it. I walk around the streets of Seattle, where I’m visiting my sister, staring at people. Shocked at how we’re dressed and what we say in this country. I stare at the pets on leashes and wonder where the stray dogs are that bark late into the night. I see people lounging on blankets in the grass and wonder how they have so much leisure time. I feel utterly disconnected from all of it.
I ask myself if it was real.
Was it honestly 11 months ago that I flew out of Minnesota for Georgia to meet my squad to begin this adventure? Have I actually been on 18 flights and 17 trains and uncounted buses? Did I really just step foot in 13 different countries and an additional five airports?
Is this really happening? Am I really back? Did I ever really leave?
Yup.
Here I sit, wearing jeans, converse, and my sister’s Husky sweatshirt, with an orange cappuccino by my laptop. Back in America. Like nothing ever happened. But it DID happen. And it’s left me changed. It’s made me wrecked, beyond repair. Thankfully. Hopefully. Absolutely.
I’ve been thinking about this for weeks. I barely slept in Malaysia and spent hours wide awake, staring at the ceiling, picturing life back at home. I’ve been trying to prepare myself mentally for all that was going to happen as I transitioned out of the World Race back into American culture.
I find that it isn’t something that I can really prepare for. I’m not ready for this at all, but it leaves me in a daze. It just happens, and I’ll have to take it as it comes. I need Jesus every moment here, and I’m thankful.
Papa, what do you have for me in this season? What’s the next step?
I have no plans, no concrete answers for where I’m going.
And while it leaves me feeling a little bit irresponsible and disconcerted, it doesn’t really bother me. I think I’ve learned this lesson, though I’m sure it will continue to come up throughout life. I have no need for plans anymore, because when I think I have good ones, they’ll change and Jesus will tell me that he has something different in mind. And things fall into place when they need to, exactly when they need to.
Jesus is faithful. Jesus is good. Jesus loves me. All is well.
A man just walked in with a Bible. The huge kind, the ones that have all of the notes you could want as you study the word. A man has a gigantic Bible, in a coffee shop. Dear Jesus, thank you for the freedom that we have in America.
How do I fit here now? I find myself asking Jesus how I’m supposed to be back in something that’s the same, when I’m so different than I was a year ago. I don’t want to go back to who I was 11 months ago, I don’t want to get stuck in the same things that I was in before the trip.
I fit in here, but I no longer belong. I can sense it in my core, there’s something off that I cannot reconcile. I think it’s that I finally know who I am, and who I belong to. And now the world seems a little stranger to me.
The journey that I have taken in these past 11 months has been an unforgettable one. I’ve arrived at my destination – back in America after almost a year around the world. Yet I find that the destination isn’t much without the journey of all that has happened. And now, I'm on my way to figuring out what's next.
We'll see what that looks like, soon.
But, until then this shall suffice: I'm back in America, back from the Race.
