i’m not coming home.

This was this was me the day I left Manhattan, at my favorite spot in Manhattan. But I’m not going back. I’m not coming home.

Two weeks from tomorrow, O-Squad will head to the airport. We will be on the plane in Ecuador and then we will get off of the plane in Florida.

In the hours we are on the plane, we will laugh and cry and reflect on the last eleven months. We will talk about that coffee shop we accidentally found in Thailand. That time Sav hiked in a dress. The time I thought I lost my faith. We will talk about Edgar from Costa Rica and how much we love that he loves coffee—and how good his coffee is. We will talk about how we feel about going home. Our futures. What adventures lie ahead.

DISCLAIMER: this is not about my post-Race plans.

This is about how I’m not coming home. This IS about how the Vickie that boarded the plane to Atlanta on October 5, 2018, will not step off off of the plane in Ft Lauderdale on August 29, 2019.

I’m not coming home. The person I was when I left for the World Race is dead and gone. The person I am is different—in a million ways different.

I’m asking for grace coming home. I’m asking for love and care and people willing to listen. Coming home isn’t easy. Leaving this community I’ve lived in for 11 months isn’t easy. Saying goodbye to a year of travel, deep revelation, identity crisis, identity building, and intentional people isn’t easy. But it is what is right.

The World Race means nothing if I come home the same as I left. It actually means my supporters would have wasted their money, prayers, and encouragement. It would mean I was dead coming home if nothing in me changed.

To my tribe back home, I want to help you by telling you a few things, and what to expect from me coming off of 11 months in the mission field.

1. I want to listen. We’ve spent a lot of time apart. And yes—a lot has happened to me on the World Race. But you’ve lived a year of life as well, and that’s a lot of time. I want to hear about what you’ve experienced the past year. Some of you got married. Some have another child, or their first child. Some of you did a lot of brave things like move to a new state. I want to hear about your lives.
2. I’ve seen a lot of hard things. I’m not putting myself on a platform, lecturing you about how I’m better for having gone on the race. I’m saying there are a lot of hard things I saw and experienced. With that comes a heart for people and a heart for people caring for other people. I might get mad or over emotional if you say you’re broke or can’t afford something. I’ve seen broke. I’ve seen poverty. Give me grace as I begin to learn what life is at home again.
3. I thought I felt too much before the Race. And then I went in the Race. And I think I feel more now than I ever did before I went on the Race. Let me talk with you about it.
4. I’m going to be emotional. I’ve lived in deep community with an incredible squad for 11 months. It doesn’t mean they’re better than you. It means we had an amazing chapter of life when we got to be characters in one another’s stories. And I want to tell you about them because they’re worth talking about. Trust me, they’ve been hearing about you guys a lot for over a year. 🙂
5. I know who I am. When I left for the Race, I thought I knew who I was. In reality, I didn’t have the slightest clue. Not even the tip of the iceberg. As you learn who I am now, ask questions. Good questions. Ask me what I learned in a specific country, about hosts, the best places I had coffee and who I was with, and, obviously, ministry.

I don’t know who I’ll be a year from now, or even tomorrow. But I know who I am now, in this moment. I know who I am on this squad. I know who I am in Christ. And that, my friends, is truly the gift of the eleven months.

No more labels. No more words describing who I am, what I am. I am simply me. I am Victoria/Vickie/Vicks. All one in the same.

This is me, month eleven, in front of the roaring lion identity, and living out that identity. It’s who I am, and who I will continue to become. It’s who I am.