“There’s no right way to end this. It’s gone as quickly as it came.”
I wrote it in black ink, the final entry in my journal exploding with currencies, notes and, well, the world, thinking that maybe the dark permanence of the pen would settle into my antsy skin as it did the paper.
It hasn’t. It has, but it hasn’t.
I don’t know where to start. I’ve had a million and one thoughts since being home, many of them remaining unfinished or scattered. It seems my thoughts have taken on physical and tangible form as well: I look around my room and see a pile of clothes—both clean and worn—waiting to be hung; two postcards from Central America that I mailed to myself; a new book that I’ve read one chapter in; souvenirs from Turkey. It’s a calm chaos that I’m sitting in, and it seems only appropriate that I try to land some of these thoughts and feelings right here, right now.
I’ve been asked the questions and said hellos and told stories. I’ve mindlessly stared at the clothes hanging in my closet—due both to the overwhelming options on hangers and the nostalgia of life before I lived out of a backpack—but have resorted to wearing simple pieces over and over. As if by donning my American wardrobe, I’ll go back to who I was before the Race. I’ve gone shopping and felt guilty about it, because the dress I just bought would have been five days of food money.
One of the main questions has been, “what are you doing next?” And while I get flustered and frustrated with this, it’s a question I mull over myself. Much of the response I feel, and have witnessed in my friends’ lives, is that we’ve made it back, we’re alive, and we should be ready to move on with our lives. “What’s next?” in my mind is translated to, “welcome back to your motherland, so glad you survived your trip, now when are you actually going to start your life?”
Perhaps this is judgment on my part. I know not everyone means this, but still, it’s a question that confuses and hurts me. Because the last eleven months don’t add up to “just a trip” or a check on the good Christian list. The World Race—yes, a fancy title with a fancy description—is more than a year of mission work. It was a whirlwind of pain, adventure, and LIFE. I may be home now, but does that discredit the life I lived while beyond these borders? They have now become stories and memories, pretty painted words and images that I share. But to me, they’re more.
There was a time in my life when I wasn’t allowed to show my knees and ankles because it was immodest.
For a month I manually made bricks. One by one.
I played volleyball with a group of peers who didn’t speak my language.
It became normal to be sweaty and smelly and squished in a public bus with far too many people than seats or standing room would allow.
My backpack contained my house, bed, and closet.
I stopped wearing makeup and doing my hair.
I have never felt more free. The life of a nomad has always appealed to me, and to be one for a year—that is where I finally settled into my skin. Not in a country where everyone looks like me, but in a nursing home where I danced with Flora despite not understanding her. Not in a setting where status and appearance seem to be the end all, but sitting and listening to a little boy share of the reoccurring nightmare he had of his mom dying and how he wished he could just die and be in heaven with her. How we prayed and I cried and I promised myself that I wouldn’t live for petty things anymore.
Re-entry has been hard. Perhaps it’s been hard because in ways, it’s easy. It’s too easy to forget the life I lived in eleven different countries. It’s too easy to just let them become stories and not remember the spiritual darkness I experienced or the freedom I witnessed and felt. It’s too easy to get swallowed up in the consumerist culture I fled from and forget what’s truly important.
In a heartbeat I would live out of a backpack again, and return to the nomadic lifestyle. But if there’s anything I’ve learned this year, it’s that I have this great thing called Story. You have it, too; we all do. Stories can’t be re-written or re-lived. The pages can only be read forward. And while I long to insert myself in earlier chapters where the setting took place in Thailand or Romania, I can’t. I’m in a new chapter entirely, perhaps even a new book. A frightening concept. A concept based on trust and faith.
So this whole “what’s next” thing? Not sure. This whole re-entry process? Painful yet numbing. The past eleven months? More than just a trip. It is gone as quickly as it came, but it was beautiful.
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To you, my supporter, prayer warrior, friend: to just say “thank you” for financially and spiritually supporting me would not suffice. Those two words simply cannot express the deep gratitude I have and the permanent marks this trip has left on my soul. You were more than a handful of dollars; you were a valued character not only in my Story, but in the countless others I was able to meet and love. Yet here I am saying thank you. Thank you for the random Facebook messages, the anonymous donations, the belief in me, the reading of this little blog. I would not have finished my Race without you.
