I have been home from the race for almost four months. You would think I would be adjusted now…that I would be past the “sad” stage and on to the well adjusted American. and sometimes I am. Most of the time I get up and go to work and sit at my desk and drink my coffee and it’s normal. Most days I wake up and go to bed and the day was good.
But some days I sit at my desk or in my bedroom and my heart is so heavy that the longing I feel for the people of the world and the people of the race spill right out of my eyes. and I cry. and I cry. and I cry.
Because I know that I will never get it back.
I spent so much of the last few months of my race waiting to go home. Two of my grandpa’s died while we were in month 9. I was tired and over it and I was done. People kept telling me- “Try not to wish it away. Before you know it. it will be over and there’s no going back. Enjoy it.” I just rolled my eyes thinking “Right, like I’m sure you didn’t miss home while you were gone.” The thing I realize now though, is that they probably did. They couldn’t wait to go home, only to realize a certain heartache comes when the traveling and experiences and community stops. They felt what I’m feeling and they were trying to spare me some of the heartache, but I feel it’s a lesson only learned in hindsight.
I have never cried more than I did on the World Race, but I have also never laughed more. I have never been as angry as I was at times, but also never as happy. I owe the race so much of who I am today. So much of my faith-because it was tested and challenged and pushed and prodded until the only thing left about me was God- which is 100% what should have happened. What needed to happen. I just didn’t realize it at the time because I was exhausted. God was breaking me and I was angry about it. Now I am so thankful.
Now that the race is over, I am so nostalgic about it. I miss the little things. Like watching movies on laptops on the floor of a church in India or Cambodia while bugs and foreign languages buzzed around my ears. I miss those babies and kids that wanted my attention 100% of the time which was both exhausting and empowering. I miss the kind of laughter that erupts from your body when you see something so foreign, so strange that all you can do is look at your friends and start cracking up. I miss squeezing 14 people into a tuk tuk or car and it being normal.
I know that I will travel again. I know that I will go to these beautiful places and be in awe all over again at the beauty of Gods creation. It will be wonderful and exciting and life-changing. But it will never be quite the same feeling as the day I piled on to a plane with 50 other wide eyed, new adventurers ready for what was going to be an amazing year of my life.
Racers on the field now- I know you are tired. I know that if you are close to or past that half-way mark…home seems very exciting. It really is hard not to wish away some of the time. I get it. Because I was there and I did it too. I can say over and over again “Don’t wish it away! Enjoy it! You will never get it back again. A year is so short compared to the rest of your life!” But just as it didn’t really change my mind-I’m sure it won’t change yours either. Once you’ve been home for a few months and you start to feel the way I feel now, I just hope you can re-read this blog and know you are not alone. Racers are forever a part of something, whether we launched four years ago or yesterday. We get it- there is something simply unexplainable about the race.
And you will miss it. But at least we can all miss it together. It is worth being missed.
