As a Racer:
1. I’ve been away from home for a grand total of 82 days now.
2. There has been limited but not inaccessible communication with my friends and family.
3. I’m one day away from missing my first family oriented holiday (sorry Halloween)
Our host family, for reasons unknown to us thus far (shoutout to language barriers) recently installed wifi in their house. Whether it was solely for our benefit or for the benefit of the ministry, I have no clue, but if I told you my honest answer, I’d be inclined to say it was mostly to fulfill the need they thought we had.
They saw that when we were allowed to finally go and get wifi, we spent over 3 hours on it. Granted some of that was spent writing blogs, sending emails, face timing friends and family, and other beneficial things. Some of it. I can’t and won’t try to speak for my team so this is completely 100% what wifi was for me.
It was 3 hours spent stalking the lives of my friends and family. I talked to one person for 40 minutes in that time. One. The rest, embarrassingly (yeah embarrassingly) enough was just spent mindlessly staring at my phone, seeing picture after picture of the events occurring stateside or even in the lives of other racers.
This blog has two points.
The first:
For the duration of the trip, I’ve felt guilty for missing home. I’ve thought it would be easier to not talk about things that reminded me of what I don’t have, because then you immediately miss it. Like missing something is immediately bad.
I don’t regret for one moment where I am right now. I don’t regret what I gave up to be here, because I’m gaining so much more than I ever expected possible.
But I still miss things. And that’s ok.
I spent some time today looking at old pictures and instead of chastising myself for breaking down and missing, I let myself laugh at the memories being brought to the surface. I let myself smile. I shared some with teammates. I let myself remember the times that led to the pictures. And mostly I let myself be thankful for each and every moment I saw.
I think in Racer culture we can sometimes convince ourselves that God will be angry with us if we are ever caught remembering home. That somehow, when we signed up for the race we not only agreed to give up the creature comforts of home but we agreed also to let go of the beautiful moments that have helped to shape us. Yeah, no. That’s completely not true.
I’m allowed to remember home. To speak of it. To share about it. To miss it.
The second:
I spent three hours on wifi doing absolutely nothing beneficial to where I’m at. THREE HOURS. Sitting in a Burger King of all places. . I mean no wonder our family got wifi. Once again, I won’t speak for my team. I spent 3 hours not interacting with anyone and letting myself mope about how I’m stuck in a Burger King in Honduras when I could be home. Home. Stuck in my phone doing the exact same thing. Just from my couch, instead of a booth.
I LOVE getting to catch up on things from home. On new engagements and wedding planning and jobs and babies being born and grad school acceptances and senior year moments and everything else that is going on in the lives of those back home. Love it.
But when I sat there and did that, I completely shut out the fact that I’m also doing something amazing. I didn’t even let myself be excited for what I saw. I actually became jealous and angry that they were doing all of these things that are actually impossible for me to be doing at the time.
I’m in Honduras. I’ve been to Costa Rica and Nicaragua in the past 3 months. In two weeks, I’ll be in Asia. I’ve gone through my moments at home. These are the moments of others. Now I’m gaining new moments and so are they. We are living life, just apart.
I’m going to continue to let myself miss home. To miss Thanksgiving with my giant, ridiculous family. To miss watching Christmas Vacation 15,000x’s before Christmas even happens. To miss college times. God gave me all of these moments, I’m going to let myself love them.
But I won’t let wifi become my go to when I’m missing the moments. Wifi can do nothing for me in those moments. It isn’t a physical being. It cannot physically bring me joy or laughter or fulfillment. It can give me glimpses of the times that brought me these things, but so can my memories. I’m allowing myself to remember, but I’m not allowing myself to become dependent on Wifi for my “connection” into the things back home. They aren’t my things right now. And that’s ok.
In a time of year where it would be so easy to check out and try to live in a time and place that I can’t physically be, I need to learn to lean on God. Not the lives of others at home. It’s time I start believing that God is my home.
So beginning after Thanksgiving: Wifi Fast! Definitely a week, maybe longer. . who knows what could happen. I don’t 🙂 . . I would love to have partners in this, seriously someone join me. 🙂
I love and miss you all unbelievably! Keep doing all of your awesome things!
Thanksgiving challenge: Don’t pick up your phone over the Thanksgiving Holiday, be present, be thankful for the moments.
– Wades
