I have been home a little more than two weeks now…
When I was in Nicaragua, the valve that seals my air mattress broke. I realized this one night as I was getting ready to go to sleep on the floor of a barn. That was one of the longest nights on the race. I spent the night cursing the air mattress that I still slept on even though it was flat. At five in the morning when the sun was creeping up, I thanked God and got out of bed because the terrible night was finally over.
So I heard a rumor that you could take gear back to REI and return it if it didn’t meet your 100% satisfaction. Lots of stores have policies like this, but they don’t actually mean that you can return a stained, beaten up, broken air mattress that has been to 14 countries and has been slept on for a year without a receipt. My brother told me I was an idiot, but I took my air mattress to REI, and asked if I could have a new one. The man at the REI counter said, “No problem, would you mind picking out the new mattress yourself.” I said,
“Sure.” He said,
“Here is your brand new, perfect mattress would you like a paper bag, so that you can walk around the store?” I said,
“Thank you, you are amazing. Please come home with me and be my best friend.” (I have been going through withdraws not having my best friends who will talk about theology while going to the bathroom with me.)
Still in the store, I called my brother to find him. (I have been told that this is what people who have phones do, you don’t have to circle the store five times to find your friends and family.) He was looking at a ridiculously nice $20 water bottle. I think I saw this same type of water bottle run over by a car and shot my a gun, and it still held water. I tried to talk him into a less expensive bottle, so that he could spend the difference on a head lamp. He said, “Why do I need a headlamp.” I said,
“Why do you still use a flashlight? Headlamps are brighter, smaller, lighter, the batteries last longer, you always have your hands free, the light always shines where you are looking because it is on your head, it is a perfect night time reading light, and it cost the same price as a good flashlight.” I love headlamps so much I could go into door to door headlamp sales. After a few minutes, I volunteer to buy the headlamp for his birthday gift. (My brother’s birthday was last week, but I didn’t get him a gift.) After a quick walk by the sleeping bags, we head to the cash registers with the water bottle, the headlamp, and some batteries. The cashier gives us our total, ask for my phone number to put the purchase on my REI membership log, and then hands me change and says, “today we are giving you money.” (REI has a thing they call ‘dividend’ where you get back something like 10% of the previous years purchase sums in store credit.)
Let me summaries what went down at the store.
1. They exchanged my broken beat up air mattress for a new one without a hassle.
2. We got a water bottle, a head lamp , and batteries for free.
3. They gave me change that we ended up using to take the tollway.
Now if only the rest of reentry was that easy. Coming back the the States has been harder than I thought it would be. I think everyone assumes that coming back to the states you will have a problem dealing with materialism, and everyone having so much. This doesn’t bother me. This is what I have learned, stuff doesn’t make me happy. I prefer simplicity, but if someone else wants a closet full of “nothing to wear” that doesn’t bother me.
What I do have a hard time with is not feeling like I am sinning when I flush toilet paper.
But on a more serious note… I think the hardest part is finding something to talk about with people. Sometimes I feel like to get along with people, I have to pretend like the last year of my life didn’t exist. I told this to a friend today, and she was really nice and started asking me questions, but when she did I didn’t know how to answer her questions.
“What was the weirdest thing that you ate?”
“I don’t know …Wart Hog?”
“Did you ever feel unsafe?”
“No, not really”
“What were your favorite things?”
“I don’t know, in what aspect?”
“I don’t know… country”
“I’m sorry I am sure that you are tired of people asking lots of questions?”
“Not really, I don’t get a lot of questions because everyone assumes that.”
I feel like I can’t talk about the race because I don’t really care about the fun parts that everyone wants to hear about. The fact that we ate on the street, rode on buses, lived out of a backpack, slept on the ground, and bathed with cold water was normal life. When I go to bed at night in my nice bed, I think about children I met that sleep on the streets or the women in the prison in Manila that sleep smashed together on wooden boards. I came home broken. I came home with pain in my heart for children that I don’t even know. I came home desperate to feel God’s love and to know his hope. I really just want to sit on someones couch and cry for an evening, and thank God for what He is doing, and keep walking. The problem is I am afraid to break down and cry because I am afraid if I go there, I am afraid if I cry alone, I won’t be strong enough to thank God, and keep walking.
This is my problem, I still don’t have a big enough picture of God and what He is doing. I still think about myself to much. I have seen the entire world hurting, but I want to pretend like I didn’t. I want to be normal, but I’m not. I still carry my headlamp in my purse.
If only life was as easy as gong back to REI.
