I’ve been home over a month now. The Race is still a weird thing to comprehend. It feels like such a distant memory yet just like yesterday all at the same time. Some days all I can do is think about the race, how I saw the Lord move, my best friends that are now across the country, my favorite kiddos that live across the world, every little thing the race was and sit in that sadness. Other days it feels like it never happened at all. It’s weird how different of a person I feel I am than when I left, yet how quick everything here can feel so normal. More days than not lately its been the second option, feeling like it never happened. I have to fight to remind myself that I did the world race. I truly have to fight to remember the big things and the little things. I have to fight for the relationships I built with friends on my squad because now those friendships aren’t just out of convenience. Now those friendships mean time zones and late night FaceTime calls, they mean sending Marco polos to each other when one of us has a moment at home that caused us to remember a sweet memory from the last 7 months across the world. Some days I’m hesitant to talk to my best friends from my squad because it hurts, it reminds me how different life is now. It sucks having people you’ve done literally everything with for the last 7 months live so far away. Sharing life with them looks so different now yet even miles apart I still feel so understood and seen by my Z family.
With all this fighting to remember something I’ve noticed over the last few weeks is many different sounds and smells. I can remember specific times when living in Costa Rica, Cambodia, and Swaziland that we’d talk about the different sounds and smells of the world. What I didn’t realize was how beautiful that would be to take home with me.
The other day I used one of my face washes for the first time since being home. It was one I had just opened when we got to Swazi. Immediately as the scrub hit my face the smell brought my mind back to Swaziland. It reminded me of the slow quiet mornings; wake up, workout, shower (hoping the water was on), coffee and breakfast with the girls, and hours with nothing to do but spend time with the Lord before ministry. It reminded me of the days Gemma & I would come back to the team house early to help our cook, Dole, prepare supper. Everyday Dole would look us up and down and say “go shower” before she would let us help her because we were so dirty from ministry. It reminded me how in Cambodia I’d take probably 4 showers a day just to wash my face and try to stink a little less thanks to those humid days.
One night recently I found myself craving hot chocolate before bed which isn’t like me at all. Before the race I never drank hot chocolate so that craving felt weird. I went to my work and got some good ole hot chocolate to sip on. Immediately as I held the cup the smell and the taste brought me back to the race and I realized the exact reason I was craving it was because Nathan Chandler used to drink a cup or five literally every single night and eventually Nicole and I would always go to the kitchen to steal his hot chocolate.
A few weeks back I painted my closet doors. As paint fumes and worship music filled my room I swear it was like I could close my eyes and put myself back in Cambodia. Saturdays painting the chapel and classrooms with some of the best people I’ve ever had the joy to know. Screaming along to country road or the Jonas brothers. Getting paint on each other and laughing about it until you realize you have pain stuck in your hair for weeks.
Every night since being home I fall asleep to rain sounds, specifically Florida Rain Storm on Spotify because back in Costa Rica my team and I would fall asleep to this in our room over a little bluetooth speaker. After having a sleepover every single day for 7 months straight it’s been hard to sleep since coming home but the minute I hear the rain sounds it brings me back to nights with my team. It reminds me of how far we came as a team. From rain sounds in Costa to our nightly Dream song in Cambodia and all the late night talks that usually consisted of Kinze and Kendel discussing the bible. Now I find myself texting them the dream song every now and then before bed.
Several nights ago there was a dog barking outside my window and it was bugging me so bad, until I remembered the stray dogs howling at unspeakable hours of the night in Cambodia that would wake us up.
I work at a coffee shop, the other day I made a lavender lime green tea with honey. The color reminded me of something so I made myself one to try. Sure enough, it tasted exactly like the tea Brittney Dean and I used to walk down the street to buy for 25 cents in Phnom Penh. Now when I drink that tea sweet memories of post ministry dates with Britt flood my mind.
The other day a customer came through the line saying that she orders the very specific drink she does because that is the closest thing she can get to Dunkin’ Donuts around here. Hearing that my mind flashed through all the times my squamates would talk up Dunkin’ Donuts to this PNW gal.
Don’t even get me started on songs that come on when I hit that shuffle button that bring me back to a specific moment or country in time on the race.
Honestly, I could probably go on and on. It’s crazy, the way your brain can remember things. Some days my heart aches so badly because I don’t feel like I should be here, I should’ve been in Swazi with my family until the end of this month. My heart aches because the last 7 months of my life feel like such a distant memory I question if it even happened. Then one of my senses kick in and I get the privilege of remembering something different each time. It’s crazy the little things that can happen here at home that trigger a memory I didn’t even know I had hidden so sweetly inside me. As I fight to remember the race, sounds and smells have become my best friend. It truly is the little things that make me so thankful for the big things. Each day I become more and more grateful for a God that not only lets me feel all the things but a God that feels all the things with me.
