Community living. Its a hard, beautiful thing.
Leading up to our flight to Ireland, we’d only spent about 10 days together as a squad, and only 4 or 5 as a team. Even that was split up. You could call that the honeymoon phase. We were all thrilled to be leaving for the Race and so excited about our team. Now reality is setting in. Don’t get me wrong, I think I speak for our whole team when I say we are in love with each other and we care about each other so deeply. But with love comes responsibility. Part of the culture of the World Race is calling greatness out of each other, and sometimes that requires tough love.
The more time we spend with each other, the more we get to know each other, the more some of our (my) insecurities come out. My friends back home know what makes me tick. They know what I’ve faced in the past, and many of them have been a part of my struggles in the past. My new family on Team Theo are still learning that about me, and I’m still learning those things about them. We are reaching that point where we are trying to move past the point of surface-level friendships, and with that comes some pain. Its not necessarily a bad thing, its just a hard thing.
I don’t want to worry anyone back home, because I promise I am 100% doing amazingly, but I want to be honest as well. I’ve run into some tough days here already. I’ve had days where I am just not in a good state of mind, days where I am hurt by things that shouldn’t offend me. My teammates are here to support me on those days, but my nature is to fend off help until I am in too bad of a state to ask for it.
Yesterday was one of those days. Fueled by lack of sleep, I let a lot of little things form false ideas about people’s intentions in things, and I just completely closed myself off to my team. They knew something was wrong, but I wouldn’t let them in. It led to some hard feedback last night, with one of my teammates graciously and lovingly telling me, in short, to grow up. Her feedback hit me pretty hard, because I was so low on sleep and just emotionally vulnerable. I took some time after feedback to process what she said, and I came to realize that what she said was a hundred percent true. It hurt me, but it came from a loving heart and with a desire to call me to be a better person than I am, and for that, it was completely worth it.
I once read a beautiful quote from CS Lewis, and it really struck me. In short, he stated that “to love at all is to be vulnerable.” I can already say that I love my teammates, which means that I must be and I am vulnerable with them. They must be vulnerable with me. We are seeing each other in both the beautiful times of joy as well as the difficult times of pain and sorrow. I’ve heard that the World Race is one of the hardest, best years of your life, and even just a couple of weeks in, I know that will be true of my next year. It will be difficult, but in the end, I will be a better person because of it.
See, I promise I'm doing well!
Also, can I just brag about how hot my team is? We're totes gorgeous!
