Today i had an oddly familiar feeling. A book that i had originally brought on the Race in January finally made it back to me. It made the rounds between teams; promoted as one of the best books i have ever read. As i once again packed A Severe Mercy into my carry-on bag, it reminded me of a blog i wrote about 11 months ago. I jumped online and pulled up the blog i wrote last November entitled “Timelessness”. I wrote it from a place of transition; i was moving into that brief limbo between seasons of life. My time at the Ranch was coming to an end and The World Race was on the horizon. I was moving from comfortable to the unknown.
On that blog are pictures of girls who had become so dear to me during that year and a half in Colorado. They had become my family and biggest supporters, and i was weeks away from leaving them behind simply because God said it was time to go. Seeing those pictures again brought back so many wonderful memories!
As i sit here tonight…moving into the last 8 weeks of the Race, i feel like my life has once again come full circle. I feel the same haste to savor these last few days, yet still excited with anticipation about the next step. It’s the same scene, just with different characters and one year later. I feel like i could write that blog again and insert “The World Race” every time it says the Ranch. And like last year, my heart aches for the morning that i will have to say goodbye to those who snuck into my heart. The ones i prayed with, cried with, rejoiced with, mourned with, laughed with, ran to in good times and bad…it’s overwhelming to think about.
In that blog i quoted an excerpt from that book. A part of that excerpt says, “the future dreams charms us because of its timelessness; and i think most of the charm we see in the ‘good ole days’ is no less an illussion of timelessness. In the reality of Now, the clock is always ticking.”
And so it is…the clock is ticking this October just as it was a year ago. In a few short weeks, i will have to say goodbye to those who were strangers just one year ago. How do strangers become family so quickly?? How do people with whom you wonder if you will ever have anything in common become so dear to you that you know you will most definitly cry your eyes out when you finally part??
A feeling of thankfulness washed over me as i re-read that blog and as i now type this one. Thankful for another group of friends that i will keep in touch with for the rest of my life. Friends with whom i experienced the world in a way that very few every get the opportunity to. Friends, who like many others, have seen in me the good, bad and ugly…and loved me through it all.
So, once again, i find myself moving from the comfortable to the unknown. Traveling, packing and re-packing, riding for hours on buses/planes/trains, camping, sharing beds/tents, not showering, eating rice and beans…that has become oddly familiar. This means that the unknown is back in America. The unknown is where i will live, what i will do. The unknown is home. When i was younger and i would tell my mom that i was scared, she would ask me, “Are you bad scared or good scared?”….The unknown is scary…but i know that it is the good scared that is welling up inside of me. I will step off that plane in 8 weeks full of good fear. I will be full of excited anticipation for what God has in store for me in 2010.
