Somewhere along the race there’s a sub-conscious shift that happens: You stop counting the number of days you’ve been on the race, and start counting the number of days you have left until coming home.
I’ve been on the race for 263 days. I have 2 more travel days. I’m almost home!!!!
To my family and friends,
I’m a very direct person by nature, and although I am going to convey this directly, I also want to share this with the upmost love and appreciation. Many of you reading this blog have supported me so much throughout this entire journey. I wanted to write this blog to help you understand a bit more of what I’m feeling, and share how you can love and support me well through transition and re-entry.
Before Cambodia, I got a tiny glimpse of what coming home was like when my squad had a layover in LAX. I know this seems like not a big deal at all, but I have to say, it was a lot. All at once. Just even being in the same airport where this whole journey started was really overwhelming. I was way more sentimental than normal. I wasn’t prepared for it to be so emotionally draining. I was feeling a lot of things being so close to home but not going home, and even little things like flushing toilet paper added to the overwhelmingness.
Can’t imagine how coming home and saying goodbye to my world race family is gonna feel, but here’s me taking my shot at compiling some things I’m most likely gonna need when I’m home.
Meet me
I just experienced the most emotional, most exciting, most adventurous, most heartbreaking, most eye-opening, most loving, most full of joy, most freeing 9 months of my life. I am different. Please keep this in mind. I am very different from the girl that got on that plane 9 months ago. I have been radically transformed. I’ve grown more fully into the woman I was created to be by understanding and walking in my identity in Christ. Walking in freedom. I can’t wait for you to really get to know me. Take it slow. There are changes, and there are things that are the same! It will take time to discern them. We got time.
Be patient, Have grace.
If I can say anything enough, it’s this. Please, please have patience with me. I don’t know how I’ll feel once I step off that plane in America. I don’t know when the emotions will hit. I don’t know how to integrate back into American culture. At least for right now. And that’s okay. It will take time. I have a lot to learn about transition and re-entry. Be patient with me. It’s hard to describe the feeling of knowing how different I am and how much I just experienced, but having this fear of coming home to everything being the same. I’m prepared to experience culture-shock. I am prepared to feel overwhelmed. I am prepared to be bombarded with all the questions and all the things. I am prepared for my main bulk of emotion to hit me as I say goodbye. But as much as I have tried to prepare and process for coming home, I know that I could never fully prepare myself for something of this measure. I can only know that I’m gonna feel the feels I don’t feel yet. You’d think it would be easier since I knew it was coming, but it just doesn’t always work that way. Please don’t take a step back if I am a little distant at first. I need time. Time to process, to adjust, to grieve, to celebrate, and to find some rhythm in my life. I don’t know yet how this process will look for me. I need time to adjust back to life in the states. Things about being back home will feel strange to me. It will be a shock for me. There will probably be days where all I’ll want is someone to verbally process with. A shoulder to cry on. And there will probably be days when I don’t know how to express what I’m feeling and I just need to be alone to process. You can best support me by reminding me you are there, even when I am not giving you the response you desire. It’s hard for me to press into others and let them into what I’m dealing with when I am feeling a lot of hard emotions. Don’t give up on me just because this re-entry period may be long. Transition can take a very long time. I don’t feel pressure to set a time frame for this. Transition will happen as life goes on. But I’m not asking you to just make this easy on me. That’s not the point. I’m asking for love. Loving someone is being willing to give grace, but also being willing to boldly step out and point someone higher even when they don’t know they need it. I’ll probably need a lot of that too. I’m only human.
Permission to ask
Although similar to giving patience and grace, give me permission. Permission to ask for what I need during transition. Permission to process emotions in a way that is healthiest for me. This creates a safe space for me where I just feel so so loved and cared for. Sometimes permission might not be asking you to do something, it may be asking you to not do something. Please don’t be offended. I’m asking for permission to voice what I need with assurance that I’ll be met with love and compassion.
Don’t set expectations. FLEXIBILITY
This one is HUGE. Don’t have an agenda waiting for me. Don’t have expectations as to what I will be like when I get home. How much growth I have had and didn’t have. What our relationship will look like. How I have changed and haven’t. What I will want and won’t want. Cause they most likely will not be met in the way you are expecting and lead to disappointment. I just want to be welcomed home in openness and willingness to just go with the flow! I’m taking transition day by day. Not having set expectations will really help me be able to adjust back, and relationships to have freedom to cultivate.
Ask questions, specific questions
PLEASE don’t ask me how my “trip” was. I know it’s easy to want to jump right in and because of excitement and intrigue just ask how these past 9 months have been, but it’s actually a really stressful question for me! I find that there is a lot of disconnect in how people view the race vs. what it actually is. This is one of those disconnects. This was my life. Not just a trip. When you ask me to essentially summarize 9 months of my life into a few sentence answer, I don’t know how to respond. it’s an “ummmmmmm welllll…” moment. Ya, don’t do that. It is so tempting to just respond with a surface level answer, but “amazing” just doesn’t do it justice. It’s both AND and BUT. It was amazing. But, it was also painful. And freeing. And beautiful. And really really hard. And full of life and love and memories and experiences and people I’ll remember forever and that have forever impacted me. Asking an overall general question doesn’t guide the conversation to go anywhere or help it dig deeper. It would really help if you asked me specific questions that produce a fuller answer, even if it takes longer to answer because it makes me think deeper.
One thing to remember: It’s really easy to feel misunderstood by people back at home while being on the world race. Feeling like they just don’t get it. And I’m sure it’s not going to be any different coming home. Asking questions with the intention of seeking to understand means the world to me. To know that you desire to understand where I am at and what I just walked out from. To see that you are asking not out of obligation, but because you genuinely WANT to know. This makes me feel really loved.
Examples of good questions to ask me:
What country did you experience the most growth in?
What was you favorite country and why?
What were your ministries during your time in Ecuador, Peru, Guatemala, and Cambodia?
Who is someone you met in one of the countries on your route that impacted your life?
What is the craziest food you tried on the race?
What was living in constant community like and how did it influence the way you communicate?
Ask me about funny stories, weird things, and even the gross funny memories! Lemme tell you, I have been to some crazy places and seen crazy things and there are so many funny, gross, scary, ridiculous circumstances that have happened that seem unreal because of how crazy the situations were!
Examples of difficult questions to not ask me:
How was it?
Did you grow a lot? (be more specific! in what area?)
Did you like it?
Was it so hard not to have _______ for 9 months? Or “I bet you are so glad you finally get to sleep in a real bed!” Well yes, there were things I missed and didn’t have, but it often can feel as if those comments discount how important and worth it and special the race is when you’re comparing its worth to an item of food or a replaceable object, even when it wasn’t meant to come across that way. (You also would be surprised that sometimes I miss my little bunk bed in Guatemala more than my bed at home!)
What did life look like? (umm where? what month?)
What is your favorite memory? (there are soooo many I have to think about, from where, do you want funny, serious, idk ahh help!!)
Community
I am saying goodbye to family. To my best friends. To my brothers and sisters. These people are really important to me. They all hold such a special place in my heart. Adjusting to not living in constant community will be hard. Adjusting to not having 4 sisters to wake up with, spend the day with, and go to bed with will be weird. Literally, I am always with someone 24/7. (yay buddy rule!) I’ll be experiencing loss of community on a huge level. I will really miss everyone, and don’t know when I will get to see them again. Maybe I’ll find myself talking in a British accent because my team talks like that half the time nowadays, and maybe I’ll cry because something reminds me of them. But I haven’t forgotten where I came from. I also have so much excitement for what’s to come and the incredible community God is gonna provide. I have so much faith and hope for this next season and can’t wait to share and just spend time with you guys!
After being gone 9 months, I don’t have a ton of community back home. Invite me to group things! Invite me to get coffee! Let’s go to the beach! Also know: I reallyyyyy want to hear about your life too! People express to me a lot that they feel bad about talking too much about themselves because they don’t think it’s important enough in comparison. Seriously not true. I really desire to hear about your lives this past year as well. I have missed big moments. I genuinely care about your lives. Talking about the race and racking my brain for memories and answering questions all the time can get draining. Sometimes I just want to sit and listen. To be reminded in such a good way that life went on while I was gone. (the world race bubble is real people)
Don’t stress too much about how it will look when I come home. Transition is a part of life. Please remember that I’m still me. Really different, but still me. I’m the same Cat that sticks my head out the window and sings all the words wrong to every song. I’m the same Cat that loves acai and gets excited when it’s sunset time. I’m the same Cat that loves Chinchilly lavender-grey nail polish, and indie music, and old movies, and tears up whenever someone else cries because I empathize with the emotional response behind crying. I still have that same determined fighter spirit, and that soft vulnerable side, and am passionate about so much I’m surprised I even have any passion left.
The take-away from this: I am coming home. And transition is hard. And it will be okay.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all of the love. America, I’ll see you soooooo soon!
XOXO, Cat
P.S Prayer request!!! Going home, I’m praying for my heart to be so filled with patience, peace, and love!
