Hi! This is the last, last blog of my Race. As this is a season ending, my new content will be posted weekly at my new website, kaylakrynski.com, (HOORAY!!!) where you can subscribe for email updates and keep reading about how God is moving, teaching, and guiding me through this world! I’d so appreciate your continued support as we go on this journey through life together.
Okay, last blog, for you!
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Lisbon, Portugal
I wake up to the sound of crackling paper and whispered words in a language I don’t speak. I jam my glasses on my face and scowl in the direction of the sound. An older couple is sitting on the bench across from me, him taking his noisy time unwrapping a muffin, her whispering. They both look at me and I know I must be a sight—hair a greasy mess, eyes puffy from too much crying and too little sleep, clothes wrinkled and unchanged for the last 36 hours.
I lay back down on my rough and uncomfortable bench as they continue unwrapping breakfast. It’s 4 AM—six more hours until I get on a plane for nine hours and then arrive in the United States of America. I scowl again, wondering if I throw a temper tantrum and refuse to leave if AIM will let me and the squad stay, and then nothing will have to change, and my heart can stop hurting, and everything will be—
It’s time. It’s okay. It’s time.
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Miami, Florida
The plane lands and a large majority of the squad cheers. I turn my face into Ally’s shoulder and let a few more tears leak out. She’s crying too and that makes me feel less alone, less crazy. I’ve been excited all week but as I actually arrive here, I’m scared and sad.
I’m not good at endings, and I know I’ve said what I needed to say, so why does it feel like there’s more to say more to do more to learn and more to love?
Be content, He says. Hold your hands open and be content.
Yes, sir.
I flex the hand Ally is holding, testing the idea of letting go. She adjust her grip and rubs her thumb gently on the back of my hand. I feel one of her tear drops slide down my forehead. We laugh.
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And then I see my mom and I remember.
Goodness lies here too. My tears are spent, but her’s are not. My hands shake. She gives me a hug, I forgot how short she is and how her hair smells, and hands me a bag of skittles, tearfully telling me she loves me.
I remember.
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I wake up at 5:12 AM on my second morning in America, covered in sweat, with the words “I’ll bet yellow” inexplicable tumbling from my mouth. Exhausted, but awake, I asked God to calm my poor brain that’s trying it’s hardest to keep up with the transition back to the States. Joking, I also told Him I’d bet yellow today and keep my eyes open for a yellow gift.
He laughed.
Later that day, I wandered the halls of Miami’s historical Vizcaya house. I turned a corner to, among all the centuries old art and furniture, see two neon signs bearing the English translation of the Latin quote carved into the façade of the building. Yeah… signs in neon yellow.
Here’s my gift. A reminder, as “real life” starts to snowball over me and I ask myself hourly if the last year of life really happened.
Mom probably thinks I’m losing it a bit because I stare and repeat “put serious things aside” over and over again. I turn to her and tell her this is it. This is what I learned all last year.
“Take the gifts of this hour. Put serious things aside.”
A gift. A reminder. Something ingrained on my heart.
Hands open not only to let go, but to receive the good gifts I know He will faithfully give.
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We walk down the street and I think I see the back of Ashlyn’s head, and the boy with the long hair in the corner of my eye is surely Walker, and I swear that laugh I just heard belongs to Rashidat, and wasn’t that flash of Erinn’s dress I saw turning the corner?
They feel like ghosts, my brain trying constantly to place them near me, but they’re not here.
They’re not here.
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Grapevine, Texas
The airport is full of drawling accents and Dallas Cowboy’s t-shirts.
I hug dad, who I saw in June, and the three of us walk outside.
It’s hot.
We drive.
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Keller, Texas
Nothing has changed.
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Really, nothing has changed. Being in this town starts to make me feel trapped. It’s been 24 hours, and I’m ready to run.
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It’s been 48 hours and I feel like I’m in high school again; I feel so incredibly small.
I write the words “I AM BIG—a vessel of multitudes” in my journal, trying to convince myself. The day goes on and I only feel smaller.
The Race is a dream, one that I fight to remember having.
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It’s been 72 hours and I’m driving alone through the same streets I’ve known my entire life. A line from a poem I wrote during an angsty period of my high school years comes to mind, “How can I escape this suburban hell?”
I ask myself that question as I drive passed familiar streets, familiar houses, familiar parks. I am weighed down by the vastness of change that has occurred to me over the last year. I want to roll down the windows and shout to everyone, “Don’t you get it?! Don’t you see?! I’m different!! Why… why aren’t you?”
I’ve been stewing in this a couple days, letting this town get under my skin.
But that’s not who I am any more, is it? I want them to know I’m changed, so why aren’t I acting like I am?
I counter the old poem with a new thought pattern, “Take the gifts of this hour.”
So I look around, counting gifts.
The summer has been kind, leaving the land greener than I’ve ever seen it this late in August. The sky, still blue, a few dark clouds on the horizon threatening the rain to come. Birds on a power line.
I am at a four way stop in front of a field that used to pasture cows but is now being turned into yet another subdivision.
Anger, hush.
Judgement, hush.
The gift… where is it? Ah, here– a sparse spread of bright yellow flowers growing next to the newly erected brick wall. Yeah… yellow flowers.
I smile and drive on.
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Transitioning isn’t easy, but it doesn’t have to be hard. My hands will remain open and my eyes wide. There are gifts, there are wonders, and how blessed am I to seek them out daily?