I’ve never considered myself a very dependent person. And then this crazy thing called Training Camp happened. In the entirety of Training Camp, my phone was off, dead, and shoved into a pocket somewhere in my backpack. My makeup sat, melting, at the bottom of my daypack. I even brought a mirror that I forgot about on day 2. Since being accepted onto the Race over a year ago, I’d never considered not bringing those 21st Century necessities.
And then Training Camp happened.
At the end of the 10 days, I felt more beautiful than I ever had. I felt more confident than I ever had. And I wasn’t wearing a single drop of makeup. I hadn’t taken a single selfie. I hadn’t gotten a single Instagram like. I hadn’t taken a single moment to stare in the mirror and point out my flaws. I simply chose to believe those I was surrounded by to be my mirror. I went from, on the first few days, asking things like “do I look okay?” and reluctantly believing the resounding yesses to forgetting to ask by day 10.
There was one morning I woke up with still-wet hair from the bucket shower the night before and I just knew it looked atrocious. So I tried to braid it without a mirror and decided just to deal with looking (assumedly) awful for the day. But throughout that entire day, both friends and strangers came up to me periodically to compliment my hair. What choice did I have but to believe them?
At home, I’ve straightened or curled my hair just about every day since I was 13. My natural curly hair has always been unruly, messy, and, in my mind, ugly. But it’s running wild for the entirety of the race. I started wearing makeup when I was probably the same age, but never with as much dependence as I have the last few years. My surroundings back home focus on appearance. How shiny someone’s hair is, how on fleek someone’s eyebrows are, how tan someone’s skin is. It’s easy to buy into and difficult to realize.
But through all of that—through all of that “beautification” of the past few years, I’ve never felt beautiful. Training Camp allowed me to unabashedly feel beautiful just as God created me. For the first time I wasn’t fighting His work and questioning His art but embracing His creative mind and seeing His reflection in me—even without bronzer.
So the makeup is staying in Wisconsin, and I feel so freaking free knowing that it is.
But there’s another piece to the puzzle.
In the time at Training Camp, AIM leadership focused a lot on cell phones. I mean a lot. It was overwhelming. They begged us to consider leaving them—so much so that it almost turned me off to the idea after awhile. When I first heard the proposal, though, I was 200% on board. But as the days went on, we started learning about the power of technology on the Race and I decided there was no way I wasn’t going to take it.
Y’all know me; I am not a decisive person. That’s something God’s trying to awaken in me this year: the ability to make a decision based on my heart and His will, not the chatter and opinions of the outside world. But that’s another blog for another rainy day.
I wrestled with the decision a lot. My brain was constantly running around the decision. “The only reason I want to bring it is because of Instagram, you know? Like you can’t use Instagram on a computer and I just really love it to share pictures. Well, plus my camera isn’t super awesome like the camera on my phone is better. Oh and music. I have 3,000 songs on my phone and my old iPod won’t hold them all and that’s just like…non-negotiable for me. I just need my music.”
One of the last nights in Georgia, I stayed up talking about the very issue with a few lovely souls on my squad. I verbally processed the heck out of it and then asked Kyle why he was being so quiet. (Obviously thinking of how annoyed he must be.) He laughed and said, “I’m not worried. You’re not going to take it.”
What did he see in me and my thought process that I just wasn’t seeing? I was super uncomfortable with just how uncomfortable I was at deleting Instagram. Everything else, I could work with, but Instagram? That would be the deciding factor. WHY? Why is this stupid free app on my stupid iPhone giving me so much validation? I’ve spent over a year looking at the 11n11 hashtag before going to sleep and dreaming of the adventures I’m going to have. It occurred to me that I don’t want to live vicariously through someone else’s race and end up missing my own.
There was a part of me that truly believed that if others didn’t see my story on social media—like I’d seen racers of the past—that it’s like it never happened.
I didn’t realize what a problem it had become. I take 10 pictures just to get 1 good one, spend 10 minutes editing it, post it, and then spend the next half hour obsessively checking my phone to see how many people liked it.
What? Sorry, but like, what the hell is that? Why hadn’t I noticed that this was controlling my life?
A few nights ago, I read something by a former racer, and it goes a little something like this:
“So when it comes to technology, I have to ask myself a personal question, and that’s whether or not I can pick up my cross with one hand and still carry my phone in the other. That’s the argument that should be made. If you want to go around the world, find new revelation of God, and experience personal change, don’t diminish your journey by plaguing it with the same reliance on your phone that defined your life before.”
Freaking boom.
I know you’re all eagerly awaiting my decision, and like Kyle said, I was never going to bring it. I’m not bringing it. Gosh, do you know how light I feel saying that? How weightless?
The thought of having to rely on person-to-person communication for 11 months, of living more presently, of making communication sacred again, and of fully embracing the adventure I’m about to embark on? Freeing. Simply freeing.
The question AIM left us with at TC was this: When again will you be able to abandon your phone for a year?
And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Abandonment? Jesus called me to this trip wholeheartedly. He didn’t call me to parts of this trip. He didn’t call me just to the adventures and not to the sacrifice. He didn’t call me to the World Race to be comfortable or to remain the same. He called me to grow. To learn. To fully depend on Him.
So I go. Feeling naked without my makeup and my phone. But the cool thing about being naked? Without clothes, you’re so much lighter than you were before.
