There are times when all I want is a room, with a door, a lock, soundproof walls, and a good big chunk of time.
I settle for zipping into my sleeping bag and slinking deep down into anonymity.
Something I’ve learned on the race is how much I enjoy being alone. I think I knew that before, I just never appreciated it like I do now. I’m around a lot of people a lot of the time. Actually, always. I was trying to remember the last time I was alone in a room for longer than an hour at a time in the last 9 months, and I can’t. There can be chunks of time when I find myself alone and it’s glorious! But it usually doesn’t last too long.
A story from Botswana with my first team….
One day I was trying to find a spot alone and quiet so I could listen to a voice message my sister had sent. The six of us on 1010 Fierce shared a small bedroom; but since I saw all of my teammates in the living room, I sneaked into the bedroom and shut the door. Within five minutes, one of the team quietly came in so she could take a nap. A little while later, another one came in to find something and sat on the bed. Before too long, someone else came in to change clothes. And then soon the other two came in because they thought there was a meeting and they were missing something. I looked up and realized we were all within 2 or 3 feet of each other – again – and I started laughing. I shared the reason I was giggling, and we all had a good chuckle about it. But then I said, ‘ok, I’m going to sit outside. Could you maybe not follow me this time?’
Sometimes you just have to fight for your space!
The flip side is also a bit true. Since I’m in a group of 6 people (and often more) all the time, sometimes I feel a bit lost in that crowd. Sometimes I sit back and just listen —- these two people are talking about dogs (or dolphins, or penguins, or cats, or whatever animal they can think of) those two (across the room and rather loudly) are talking about their ministry for next month, another three are discussing the merits of the New Living Translation versus The Message, and some more over there are describing the new clothes they just got at the thrift store. You get the picture I think. It’s a bit easy to fade into the background.
Sometimes you have to fight to be heard in this wild crowd of World Racers.
This was sometimes the case with my second team. In Zambia, we would sit around the only fan on our beach linoleum and talk about very random things. So random, in fact, that the subjects would change very quickly. And in order to add thoughts on a subject, sometimes you had to interrupt someone interrupting someone else, otherwise the subject would change and you’d be left with something you REALLY wanted to say.
And sometimes I just enjoy sitting back and listening to what’s happening around me. I really don’t have anything to add to any conversations and I can learn quite a bit while eavesdropping on all the chatter around me.
But whether I really want to be alone or really just want to get a turn to speak, I’ve learned to love being in the midst of this craziness. It’s become an adventure to simply get something to eat, or walk down the road, or even wait for a taxi to show up.
It’s my life! Such a good life!
