Yes, this post is six months late(to the day actually). I’m finally writing it now because MNOPQ Squads are heading home today. As usual, italics are direct quotes from my journals, and if you only want the statistics, scroll to the very bottom.
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5/22
8:53am-Get on a bus to the airport. My usual bus buddy wasn’t flying home with the squad, so Jess got to be my last buddy ever.
9:40am-Arrive at the airport. We sing the Doxology as we get off the bus, I suppose because the last bus ever is certainly a reason to praise God from whom all blessings flow.
10:12am-Kruger is the tiniest airport I’ve ever seen and probably one of the smallest in the world…I swear there are American malls bigger than this. There’s only one gate. Security took less than two minutes per person, and we’d gotten there four hours before our flight. Zach comes through last, looks at all of us looking at him, and just says “Sorry.”
We wandered in and out all we wanted. It felt much more like a really nice bus station than an airport.
1:43pm-Plane takes off.
I finished reading Orange Is the New Black. Piper has made my whole journey with me. It seems like it was in a different life that I was on a bus after month 2 and comforting myself by saying “At least I’m on a mission trip for 11 months instead of in prison for 15.” How could I have ever wanted this to end?
2:35pm-Plane lands in Johannesburg.
8:25pm-Plane#2.
All doctor’s offices smell the same. All airplane meals smell the same. I’m eating a “chicken sandwich” that tastes and smells like Taco Bell’s beef. Which I like…I just don’t know why they call it chicken.
5/23
4:03am-Land in Qatar. This is my favorite airport, besides maybe Osaka, but we only spent about twenty minutes in that one.
Change watch to EST, which hurts my heart a little bit. It’s disorienting not knowing the next time I’ll be in another time zone.
Attempt to start saying goodbyes, but it just feels weird. Like offering someone the plastic fruit from your coffee table.
1:55am(3 hours and 52 minutes of waiting)-Plane#3. This is the last plane my entire squad will ever ride together and. it. is. awful.
I think you can tell an airline meal is less than fantastic when you’re eating something covered in gravy and you aren’t sure whether it’s chicken, fish, or eggs.
When I get to heaven I’ll need to ask God how many times I thanked him for this window seat. I cannot stop thanking him.
3:40pm-Sing. Cry the whole time.
3:44pm-F Squad is removing their seatbelts and exercising caution while removing items from overheard bins etc. We are on the ground. In the UNITED STATES.
Everyone on this shuttle is speaking ENGLISH. They all look unhappy and they’re all in a hurry. We’re definitely home.
5:16pm–The wheels have hit the ground. The National Anthem has been sung. Customs has been cleared. My bag has been found. I’m sitting on it in the middle of a crowd of strangers.
I’m alone and allowed to be…
I get to my aunt and uncle’s house and go to bed at 7pm(partly because it feels like 1am, but mostly because I’ve been awake for a day and a half).
5/24
7:33am-This is only the second time I’ve ever flown by myself, so I forgot how fast everything goes without a giant group; check-in and security took twenty minutes.
Find my gate. OMG SHELBY! I don’t have to fly alone!
Our flight to Charlotte is delayed twice. Note to self, avoid US Airways in the future. But this shortens my layover, so I get to wait a couple hours in DC with another Racer rather than in Charlotte alone.
10:57am-I like the word “penultimate.” It means second to last. This is my penultimate flight.
12:04pm-Hug Shelby as if I won’t see her at Searchlight in three weeks. Almost cry. Realize the next person I hug will be my mom…forget all about tears.
1:17pm-Climb on the plane and laugh out loud. This is THE tiniest plane I’ve ever seen. It’s a two-by-two and there are probably about thirty seats, maybe not even that.
I finally get to read my last note from my team. And bawl. My seatmate probably thinks I’m leaving a funeral.
1:50pm-Wheels on the ground. I am sitting on a plane in COLUMBIA SOUTH CAROLINA and I’m laughing and sobbing and Snoopy-dancing in my seat, and the little boy across the aisle asks his mom “Why’s that girl crying?” and I smile at him and answer for her “Because I’m going HOME!” then I’m pushing the lady in the aisle seat out of my way and jumping down the steps(because the plane is so small it doesn’t pull up to one of those big ramp chute things).
And then I’m running, without even thinking about what my legs are doing, only who they’re carrying me to, and I vaguely wonder if people think I just hijacked a plane but I just can’t stop and I don’t care, and now my lungs are closing but I still can’t stop, I wave to a few strangers staring at the crazy sprinting lady, and I get to the lobby and stop myself, huffing and puffing and seeing no one I know…I look at my watch and realize my plane landed ten minutes early, then I look up and see my mom and dad on a bench far away with their backs to me…for a half second I contemplate hiding until they stand up and turn around so they can be waiting and holding up their signs…but I’ve waited eleven months and can’t wait ten more minutes.
So I run again, and my mom hears my footsteps and turns around just in time for me to slam into her, and I’m screeching like a chihuahua having a heart attack, and I don’t know how to make any other noise because I can’t stop laugh-crying, and then Scott and Matthew appear and tackle me too and I’m squished in a huddle of my favorite people on earth, and I don’t think I’ll ever be this happy again even on my wedding day or the birth of my first child.
I look over my mom’s shoulder and see a lady on a bench, watching the whole scene like we’ve made her day. I wave so she’ll know I don’t care that she watches.
I. am. HOME.
Total: 23 hours 16 minutes on 5 planes
47 minutes on 1 bus
15 hours 6 minutes of waiting
