I’d always rather write a thousand words than take one picture.
Here’s my #tbt that won’t fit into an Instagram post.
“You’re waiting for a train. A train that will take you far, far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you can’t be sure. Yet, it doesn’t matter. How can it not matter where that train will take you?”
Because you’ll be with your squad. Because no matter how many hours that bus is delayed, no matter how sick you are from sleep deprivation and a diet of Pringles and Nutella, you’re exactly where God wants you to be and someday you’ll miss these moments that currently feel like torture but are really just good stories in the making.
[that answer only makes sense if you replace “train” in the above quote with “Colombian bus”]
I remember snuggling on the bus station floor in Peru with Sarah Gill, sharing life and crying every kind of tears together, and laughing every time someone looked over and asked if we were okay.
I remember sitting with Josh and Dillon in the bus station in Bogota, after the most difficult bus ride yet, waiting for our contacts to finally pick us up. The awful new Transformers movie is only funny if you watch it with the right friends after being awake for almost 60 hours.
I remember being on three continents in two and a half days, staring at Nick Jonas across LAX with Sarah Dooley and Danielle(true story), getting Starbucks three times in 18 hours, and skipping November 4th.
I remember the bus ride from Malaysia to Thailand with only Team Boxcar, when Lizzie declared that she just had to be on my team for the rest of the Race, and I realized how perfect we are together.
I remember the long plane from Cambodia to Swaziland, leaving my old team and walking into a new one, lying on the floor beside Meagan with our feet on the wall discussing whether goldfish(the real fish) would taste good. Or something like that. I knew then that we would get along fine and my new team would be okay.
I remember the morning we left Pretoria, when Madeleine surprised us by showing up at 7am to say goodbye, then sitting by myself on the long bus to Kruger and crying my eyes out until we met up with two other teams and Molly Bell got to be my bus buddy.
And I remember getting on a plane alone, and running through the Columbia airport like a bat out of hell, and tackling my mom and crying uncontrollably and not being able to say a word or feel my face.
Don’t wish away those days, current Racers…I know they’re exhausting, but what you’re doing is so weird and just FUN and these are the things you’ll remember when you’re 90 and forget your last name.
Thank God for how long you’ve been awake,
for your faithful bus buddy who’s been with you since your first overnight ride,
for the scenery you’re riding past or flying over,
for the airplane meals that all smell the same…
…even for the hours you’ve been holding your pee and wanting to die, because who knows, someday someone might ask who has the best story of a time they desperately needed a bathroom, and you can win with the time you waited four hours only to squat over a hole in front of a line of Thai women.
But that last experience may be unique to me.
