To my family and friends:
Many of you reading this blog right now have supported me so much throughout this whole entire journey. I wanted to write this blog for you to help you understand how you can best love and support me during this transition back home. This is really important to me, and I hope you take the time to read through it.
I am not the same person I was when I left
I just experienced the hardest, most emotional, most exciting, most adventurous, most growing, most eye opening, most freeing 8 months of my life. I am different. Please remember this. I am not the same girl who got on a plane in Atlanta 8 months ago. I have been radically transformed. I’ve grown more into the woman the Lord created me to be. I have learned to walk in the power and authority God gave me. I am confident in who I am and whose I am. I have learned what it means for me to personally walk in freedom. I can’t wait for you to get to know me. Please be patient and give me grace. There are things that are the same, but there are things that have changed. It will take time. We have time.
Be patient and give me grace
This is something I will work on with you too. I’m going to have days where I’m an emotional wreck. I might not know how to re-integrate into American society right away. I don’t know how to describe the feeling of knowing how different I am and how much I just experienced but coming home to everything being the same (minus the panic/closings due to corona—that’s not the same). I might feel overwhelmed and experience reverse culture shock. Don’t take it personal if I seem distant at first or if I’m not jumping on any chance I get to immediately come visit you. I just need time. Time to process and adjust and grieve and develop a new routine and I just don’t know how it’s going to look yet. Being back home, especially under these circumstances is just so weird to me. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. I think there will be some days where I really need someone to talk to. Someone to just sit and listen. And I think there will be some days where I need someone to just sit with me while I cry because I don’t know how to express to you what I am feeling. Don’t give up on me. I’m not asking you to tiptoe around or go easy on me. In fact, that’s the opposite of what I want. Just show me love. Loving someone is showing them patience and grace in the difficult times but also being willing to speak up and point them higher even when they don’t realize they need that.
I need you to let me talk about the race
Verbally processing everything is going to be so important to me. I need you to allow me to talk about the race—people I met, relationships built, foods eaten, sketchy buses on a travel day, etc. I will want to keep the memories alive by talking about them. I will want to remember my squad and the family that they are to me by talking about them. I’m even going to need grace and patience with this too. I may seem like the world race is all I ever talk about (or maybe not, i don’t know) but just know that if I am sharing stories with you, it is because I love and trust you and am excited to share things with you. I also want to hear about stories from your life over the last 8 months! Please don’t ever feel like you can’t talk about your own life because it isn’t important enough in comparison. That is a lie. Along with this comes permission. I need you to allow me to process my feelings in a way that is healthiest for me, and that may look like talking about it.
Do not set expectations for me
Do not set expectations as to what I will be like when I get home—how much growth I did or didn’t have, what our relationship will look like, what areas I changed in and didn’t change in, what things I will want and won’t want, etc. In reality, your expectations will probably not be met and that will just lead to disappointment on both ends. Please welcome me home with an open mind and the willingness to go with the flow/take things day by day. Not setting expectations for me will help me readjust back into America and will give me the freedom to figure out a new normal.
Do not ask me “how was your trip?”
This is probably the most stressful question I could possibly be asked. It wasn’t a vacation, and it wasn’t just a mission trip either. It was my life for the last 8 months. It wasn’t one of those short term mission trips where you shove a bunch of Jesus and volunteer work into 7 days. I’ve done a couple of those in the past. This was my life. Learning the languages, learning to navigate on my own throughout villages/cities, acclimating to a new culture and new foods, diving deep into relationships with ministry partners or strangers at our hostels. I honestly don’t know how to respond to this question. I know the heart behind people asking me this is not because they are trying to cheapen the experience or discount how important and special the race is, but that is honestly how it feels.
One thing to remember: It is really easy to feel misunderstood by people back home while being on the world race—feeling like people just don’t get it. And I imagine it isn’t going to be any different coming home either. Asking me questions with the intent of seeking to understand means the absolute world to me. It means the absolute world to me to know that you desire to understand where I am at and what I just walked through/out of. It means the absolute world to me to know that you are not asking me questions out of obligation but because you genuinely want to know. This makes me feel really loved.
PLEASE click this link for a list of really good examples of questions to ask me.
Examples of difficult questions to ask:
How was it?
Did you grow a lot? (be more specific—in what area?)
Did you like it?
Was it hard not to have ____?
What was your life like? (where at? what month? what about my life?)
What is your favorite memory? (there are soooo many—from where? Do you want a serious or a funny memory?)
Community
I just said goodbye to my family. In fact, I didn’t even get to say goodbye to everyone because of the way this all ended. X squad means the world to me and they will be in my heart forever. I imagine I’m gonna have a heck of a time adjusting to not living in community 24/7. I’m not kidding when I say for the last 230 days, I was with at least one other human being at all times. Not everyone was a fan of that, but I freaking loved it! It’s going to feel really lonely and sad to not wake up to a few other girls laying right beside me or to not have someone else with me while I sit on the floor and do absolutely nothing or when I am riding in a grab (the asian Uber) an hour away to go to a store. You get the point. I’m gonna grieve this area big time. I imagine I will feel like I’m literally experiencing a loss. Especially at a time where isolation is not only encouraged but mandated with the corona virus restrictions, it isn’t even possible for me to search for a new church community/new group of believers my age. I already miss everyone, and I honestly don’t even know when or if I’ll see them all again. Maybe I will cry because something will remind me of someone, or maybe I’ll say something in an African accent because my whole squad did that so often and it’ll probably seem really weird to you.
At the same time, I haven’t forgotten where I came from. I haven’t forgotten my loving family or my amazing best friends at home. I am excited to see you all and catch up!
~
I know that was a lot to take in all at once. Do not stress about how it will look like when I come home. Transition is a part of life. Please remember that I am still Haley Vaughan. I still love blasting my music and having a jam sesh in the car. I’m the same Haley who is down to come with you to buy socks at walmart or to spontaneously drive 4 hours for a concert. I still love all things St. Louis. I am the same Haley who likes to goof and joke around and sometimes laugh at inappropriate times. I still can’t seem to paint my fingernails any other color besides white, black, or pink. And I am the same Haley who lights on fire at a chance to sing karaoke or have a dance party in the kitchen.
I am home now. Transition is hard, but we can do this together. It will be okay.
With love,
Haley
Thank you to Catherine Pages, an alumni racer, whose blog I used to write this!
