Dear Home,
In the last nine months, there have been times I have thought of you a lot. I’ve wished I could be with you, playing around, and so many nights in Africa I wished I was sleeping in my own bed. There have been times I haven’t thought of you at all. Times I was so enthralled with where I was or what I was doing, that the thought of ever being forced to come back to you made me want to cry. Times of excitement and times of dread, times of elation and moments of fear. When I first left, nine months sounded like forever. Going to six countries sounded like I would never actually come back home. Now only having a few days before I come back to you, these last months have flown by. That doesn’t mean its been easy though, in fact this last year has definitely been the hardest of my life. Even with all the heartache, the mess, the exhaustion, and the trials, it just feels like I blinked. And now this crazy whirlwind of a year is coming to a close.
Before I seen you again, there’s a few things I need you to understand.
I love you.
More than I ever even realized before. I’m so thankful for the perspective that time away from you has given me. I’ve learned how desperately irreplaceable you are. I’m sorry that it took me leaving to fully understand that. Thank you for standing by my side, supporting me, praying for me, and loving me across oceans. Thank you for letters and pictures and bible verses that I’ve carried with me. It’s because of you, the ones that I left behind, that have been able to accomplish everything I’ve done. You have been my rock this year. It hasn’t only been my journey; you’ve been such a big part of it too.
I’m coming back to you again in less than a week. I’m ready to feel the warmth that only you can bring, but I need you to know that although I’m coming home, everything is different now. To you, I’m coming back to the place I belong. To me, I’m coming back to a place I belong. This year I’ve left pieces of my heart everywhere I have been. and not all of me is coming home. I have treasured so much of the world the last nine months; my heart is still in those places. Part of my heart will always belong in a little purple house in Nepa. Part of my heart will always be with two little girls in India. Part of my heart will always be with the rehab program guys in Nepal. Part of my heart will always be with a little house in Zimbabwe filled with so many adorable children. Part of my heart will always be with the little girl in Zambia that walked around with me for three hours just holding my hand. Part of my heart will always be with all of the little kids we gave bread and juice to every day in Malawi. Part of my heart will always be with the 25 little kids that we spend every single day with in Ecuador. My heart is scattered across this world, and I need you to know that’s scary for me. There is a quote I found by Miriam Adeney that hit my heart so hard and I think it explains things pretty well. “You will never be completely at home again, because part of your heart will be elsewhere. That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place.”
I’m going to need space to grieve. I’m coming home to you, but I just had to say goodbye to my crazy dysfunctional family. I just said goodbye to my team, my people. I haven’t been apart from these people once this nine months. They’re a part of who I am now. They’ve meant more to me than I could have ever anticipated. They have become my church and together we learned what it looks like to fight for each other. They are the ones who walked me through things this year that you couldn’t. They have helped me carry memories that were too hard for me to tell you about. They have loved me in times I was very unlovable, and I have loved them just the same. They taught me how to chase after the Lord, how to live my life reflecting His light, and how to love everyone better.
I’m going to need to start telling you these stories. I’m going to need you to keep these memories alive. I’m going to need to talk to you in order to make this last year real. I’m going to need help from you.
Please ask me questions, but please don’t ask them unless you really want to hear the answers. Please don’t ask me how my “trip” was. This wasn’t a trip; this was my life. Unless you’re prepared for me to flip that same question back on you, and ask you how your whole year was, ask me something else. It will mean the world to me if you ask me specific questions but give me the grace to try and answer the question and maybe just go completely on to another story all together. I want to share with you the people and the places that have stolen my heart, even though that will probably be very scattered.
In the same way you want to know about my year, I want to know about yours. I want to hear stories, even if they are simple and silly. I want to know. I feel distant. I may be at home, but I don’t know what’s changed since I’ve been gone. I don’t know about the new grocery store that opened down the street, or if they the closed that small coffee shop I loved. I don’t know if you made new friends or had a weird professor or a coworker with a funny accent this year. I don’t know what videos have gone viral, what memes are funny, or what crazy things are happening. Tell me things. Please. But also, know that it’s going to overwhelm me at times. When that happens, I need you to help me get my bearings again. Explain it to me slowly. Give me a little bit of space and time just to process. At the same time understand that I’ve gotten really good at adjusting. I’ve gone from culture to culture every month this year, and coming back to The States is no different, except now I have you. At the same time that it’s adapting to culture the same way I always do, it’s going to be strange. It’s something I feel like I should understand. I feel like I should be able to function normally. It’s where I was born, it’s where I grew up. It also is going to be so different, and my normal coping mechanisms are not going to work.
As I’m adjusting, sometimes I’m going to need to cry. Probably at surprising or confusing times for you, and for reasons you don’t understand. I am going to have freak out moments. I’m going to have moments I just sit and cry for no reason. Please just give me a hug and let me get through it and babble, even though it probably makes no sense to you why I am crying because I’m offered a bagel.I need you to know that in the past nine months, my normals have changed. Trying to fit back into my old life isn’t going to be easy or really even totally possible. It’s going to take time and patience. My normal has become a wardrobe of about seven shirts. My normal has become markets rather than grocery stores. My normal has become slow internet and sometimes patient attempts at communication. I don’t know how to function on internet you don’t have to wit 5 minutes for an Instagram story to load. My normal has become a constant game of charades and broken English. And as crazy as this may seem to you, I’ve grown very attached to my new normal, and it’s going to be hard for me to let it go. I love the safety and comfort I feel when I’m in my own little world wrapped in a blanket, listening to music, and reading whatever book I can find. I love not being constantly bombarded with an overwhelming amount of choices when it comes to food and clothes; it makes life simple. I’ve grown attached to simple. I love how I can be in a crowd or a café full of people, but it’s still strangely quiet in my mind because I can’t understand a word anyone is saying. I have grown used to chatting with my people in rooms full of strangers and talking about whatever I want because they can’t understand me. I love that if I want to do something, all I have to do is walk into the next room and someone will go with me to get coffee in five minutes.
There will be days that I will need to escape and process. Encourage me to do this. There will be days that I hate being home. Encourage me to bring those frustrations to the Lord. There will be times that I say something in a random language, or throw toilet paper in the trash can, or eat with my hands, or play with someone’s kid in a parking lot and get strange looks, or touch the head of every kid I see because that is what I do now. Give me grace. Give me a hug. Give me space.
While I’m transitioning, I might get too overwhelmed by grocery stores (or heaven forbid Target) and have to leave. I might want to sleep on the floor in the comforts of my old faithful sleeping bag, or I will want you to sleep in bed with me. I might say “Oh this reminds of that time in ____,” or “oh I miss my little kid named ___” over and over again and just want to sit and tell you stories about them. I might want to simply drive and listen to music and not talk at all. I might want to get Taco Bell at midnight or I might want to spontaneously go on an adventure because this year I have fallen in love with spontaneity. If someone texts me and asks to do something, I will want to go and do it right that minute. I have fallen in love with following the curious heart that beats wildly in my chest at the thought of adventure. I want to show you this new part of me.
I want to see you. I want to spend time with you, but please don’t assume I’ll just show up at your door, there are too many of you to do that. Ask me to get dinner. Ask me to come over, watch a movie, and snuggle. Ask me to go on a walk, or run errands. Ask me to be a part of your world. Just let me be beside you and remind me what it is like to be a normal person. I need help figuring out what our relationship looks like again, and I feel like I’ve missed so much. And I’ve missed YOU so much. More than I can accurately express. At the same time, understand if it’s too much for me that day. Understand if maybe all I want is to be with my mom, or go on a walk with my dog, or sit in my dad’s office while he works, or drive around all day with no destination, or sit and play FIFA with my little brother, or even just escape and be alone.
And for the record, no, I don’t know exactly what I’m doing when I get home. I’ve learned how to live on mission in the last nine months, and that is what I am going to continue to do. I’m not sure what that looks like yet, but I’m okay with that. I’m asking you to respect it. More than just respecting it, it would mean the world to me if you encouraged and supported me in this. Because honestly, it is terrifying for me. But, if I’ve learned anything this year, it’s that life is so much more than a degree, or a career, or a white picket fence. I’ve learned that I am doing the world a disservice if I’m not following my passions and the callings that the Lord placed on my heart, and you are too.
The reality is, these nine moths have completely shattered my American Christian worldview. Praise the Lord for that. I have seen things that have broken my heart and changed me forever, things I’ll never be able to unsee. I am no longer blissfully unaware of the world, and I will never be again. I cannot step perfectly back into the life I was living before I left, and I don’t want to. I want my future to be colored with the beauty that can only come from living whimsically with the Lord. My goal is not to follow the American dream. My goal is not to have western success. My goal is to keep following Jesus in everything. Just as you’ve been supporting me and covering me with your prayers this year, please continue to come alongside me in this way. That is the best way you can love me while I transition.
“And the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” – 2 Timothy 4:6-7
I cannot wait to see you again.
I’ll be home soon.
Love, Tara
