We all know that Instagram tends to paint the World Race as a picturesque, perfectly filtered, glorious adventure. Want to know a secret? It does that to re-entry too.
Sure, it’s fun at first. You see your friends and family again, you give a presentation or two at church, you tell a few hilarious bathroom stories and answer endless questions about food. You drive to Starbucks, you go running by yourself, you do all of those things you missed from home.
But at some point it all wears off and you’re lying on your bed in the fetal position, crying and hugging a stuffed elephant that technically belongs to your sister…okay that was a little specific.
Because it’s killing me that I can’t walk across the room, find my teammates, and laugh about whatever shenanigans going on that particular day. If I want to go to the coffee shop, I have to go by myself. I can no longer casually say, “You guys want to worship tonight?” If I sing, I sing alone and that’s not nearly as much fun. I’ve gone from a life where the only alone time you had was in the bathroom (and sometimes that wasn’t even guaranteed) to having all the time in the world to myself. Solitude is refreshing. Loneliness is not.
I miss community. I miss ministry. I miss the unpredictability of life on the Race. I even miss feedback. Feedback. Oh, if month one Sarah could see me now…
At this point I’m mostly just rambling on, because I don’t really have a point. And that’s how I kind of feel about this limbo I’m in between the Race and the real world… In a few weeks I’ll start my summer job as a camp counselor, and finally, after that, the real world awaits.
What even is “the real world” anyway?
Now please understand that this is no cry for help or pity – I haven’t gone off the deep end or anything crazy. If there’s anything I’ve learned about blogging, it’s that I can’t be anything other than honest or raw. Every time I tell some story about this past year, I have to remember that it’s now only a story. But at the same time so much more than that – the true stories are the best kind.
I miss the World Race – the good, the bad, the ugly, the challenging, the gross, the awesome, and the everything in between. However, I know that great pain following loss means great love. I can work with that.
