Remember when I got home from training camp and wrote five blog posts about it within three days?
Project Searchlight has been like Round 2(and the kind of sequel that’s actually better than the first). Except I’ll try not to write quite so much about this one(my squad coach always told me at debriefs that I give him too much to read every month, and yesterday he said I could stop blogging now that the Race is over. He’s kidding, but I still agree).
So, I got to the US on May 23rd, home on the 24th, then went back and forth from my bed to my couch with Netflix drowning out my depression.
After two weeks I’d been in one place for too long, so I set off to go to three places in three weeks(it seemed reasonable after eleven countries in eleven months).
I went back to work at camp for one week and then touched down at home for about 40 hours before heading to Gainesville, GA(which is not the same thing as Atlanta. My bad).
As I said much less kindly in my last post, re-entry is HARD. Current Racers won’t believe me, but it really is harder than the Race itself.
Since AIM loves us and takes such ridiculous care of us, they give us just enough time at home and then invite us back for a week to reunite with our squad and get reminded of some good truths that reverse culture shock may have made us forget.
Up until Sunday, I’d done everything I could to shut out all thoughts or feelings related to the World Race, telling myself I’d process all of them once Searchlight happened.
There were a lot. Here are the bullet points of what’s found its way into my heart the past three days:
-Jesus really, really, really loves me. And I really, really, really love Jesus.
-Spiritually sleeping is not the same thing as resting, so I haven’t rested a minute since landing in DC.
-The point of going to the beach is to get in the ocean, and if life is a beach then God wants me to come out and swim with him.
-Never ever ever tell God “I’ll do anything but…” Ever. Because if you do, then “…” will be exactly what he calls you to do next. Also, since I don’t always listen to him, God likes to tell other people things about me before he tells those things to me, then let those people tell me instead.
-I am hilariously stubborn.
Being with my (F)amily again is beautiful. I love having sisters like Jess who can predict everything I do before I do it and brothers like Dillon who lets me be his cornhole partner even though I suck at it, and parents like Deon and Rynette who love us as much as their real kids. And Hope, who’s just a rockstar at every bit of life because she’s simultaneously one of the funniest and wisest people I’ve ever met. I’ve missed these people so so dearly.
I’ve loved being surrounded by alumni Racers. Like older ones; I keep forgetting that I’M an alumni now and that’s weird. Just like at training camp, I’ve possibly spent more time with them than I have with my own squad. I can’t help finding them and making them teach me things.
This is what it’s like to be alive. I forgot.
To be continued.
