This next guest blog is from my bestie, Chantal Knepper! She just finished her first year of medical school! She puts into words what many othera may be feeling, so I hope just one of you reading this gets something from her words!
If you are reading this, you probably got here by 1 of 2 paths:
1) You follow the AMAZING journey of my best friend Kaitlin McElroy, or one of her teammates. If this describes you, I want to sincerely thank you for following these wonderful people for the first half of this adventure known as The World Race.
2) You did what I did a little over a year ago: hopped onto Google and typed in the words “my best friend is going on the world race”. If you, the reader, identify with this option, I wrote this blog for you.
I specifically remember the day my friend sat me down to tell me about the World Race. One of my friends was already committed to going away for 11 months, so the concept wasn’t completely unheard of. Kaitlin sat me down in our campus coffee shop and told me in the way her and I usually communicated about serious things: word vomit. “I think I am going to try the World Race next year…you know the 11 countries, 11 months thing?”
My response at the time: “Okay.” My response a couple weeks later when the news really set in: tears streaming down my face while merging onto the interstate. It was the start of my “love-hate” relationship with this World-Race-Thing. I know what you’re thinking, and I agree, “hate” is a REALLY strong word. But I’ve always believed that “love” is a stronger word. (And let’s be honest, “love/strongly-dislike” does NOT have the same ring to it). So for the current or future “best-friend-of-a-world-racer”, I’ve broken down the world race into just that: loves and hates.
HATES:
Above anything else, you are going to hate the internet and its lack of consistency. Some months you will talk to your bestie almost every day only to be followed by months of text messages that won’t send, emails without responses, and crippling silence. The months like that are the worst. You will swear to yourself that you are ready for the lack of communication. You will practice it – not communicating- and even think you are pretty darn good at it. And then the time will come when all you want is to talk to your best friend and the internet will let you down. I will be honest with you – nothing will prepare you for this. Know that it will happen, and when it happens, no number of cat pictures, YouTube videos, or likes on Facebook could make you love the internet.
This leads me to my next hate: missing my best friend. I remember thinking during month 3 how the World Race was going quickly. I remember specifically thinking that the next 8 months would fly by. Two days after my very positive thoughts about the World Race occurred I had my first real breakdown. I missed my best friend so much it hurt. More than anything in that moment I wanted her here. I wanted to sit next to her on the couch and talk about absolute nonsense. I wanted to see her car in the parking lot when I pulled into school in the morning. I wanted to eat dinner at the table and talk about our days. You will miss your friend. There will be days when you are just sad because you want to share inside jokes with them, or you eat their favorite food and think of them. You are going to miss them infinitely while they are gone, but isn’t it beautiful that you have something that warrants a feeling that strong? Aren’t you lucky to miss something that bad?
It is true that I hate the lack of internet and missing my main squeeze, but sometimes the hardest part is dealing with your own mind. Going into the race I knew Kaitlin’s fear: she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to make a difference. I hated that her list was so small and mine was huge. She was the one leaving everything for eleven months, but I had a list of fears and doubts that could only be measured by lengths of football fields. I was worried about our lives being so different. I was worried about change, for better or for worse. I was worried we would grow apart. I’ll be honest; I haven’t talked to other friends of Racers about these things. I don’t know if my fears were irrational. If you are feeling that way, though, just know that at least one other person in this big world feels that too, and that you are not alone.
LOVES:
It may seem as though there is nothing great about this opportunity after reading the above paragraphs. I promise you, the loves weigh out the hates. Every. Day. When your best friend goes on the World Race, you go on an adventure with them. Sure, you watch it from behind a computer screen, but you vicariously live through them. When they are having a beautiful day, you do too. When they witness miracles, you feel empowered. When they get to play with a monkey or ride an elephant, you can’t help but be excited. You get to watch your friend transform.
They will grow and change, and quite honestly you will too. Kaitlin and I are not the same people we were in September, and this change is good thing. Your best friend will face their fears on the race, and when they conquer them, the feeling of pride you have back at home will be felt half way around the world. I have never been more proud of Kaitlin in the entire time we have known each other than during these last 10 months. I cannot put into words how amazing it has been to watch her achieve her dreams and accomplish goals she set for herself. You will experience this, and when you do you will fall back in love with The World Race.
You will grow closer. I know, this seems pretty unlikely and cliché. I didn’t think it was possible. Before Kaitlin left, the longest we had been apart for two and a half years was a couple of weeks. We took almost every class together. We even were each other’s top friend on snap chat. So how could we get closer? The funny thing about the race is that it breaks you down: it takes away your internet, it takes away the security of your best friend, and it exposes your weaknesses. When you strip those things away, you end up growing closer. You value every second you have to chat and catch up, even if it is a half hour when they are eating lunch in a café. You learn to be independent of them and to get out of your comfort zone. You get an opportunity to work on your weaknesses. And the best part about it – you will be doing these together, even if it is from a gazillion miles away.
There will be days you hate the race, it’s true. But I promise you there will be more days that you love the race, and those days will make every second of missing your best friend worth it.
