the hardest part is home

My friends who had done the Race before me warned me of a lot of things before I left. About boundaries. About myself. About getting rocked. About culture shock. About places. About time. About a lot of things.

None of them warned me about coming home.

No one warned me that familiar places would feel unfamiliar.

No one warned me that friends at home might be gone when I got back.

The race was hard.

Some days, it was harder than I thought I could handle.

But for me, the hardest part is home.

The hardest part is going back to the pace of life in the States.

Especially after five months in Central & South America.

I’ve been back in the States for about ten days. Back in my town for less than a week. I started work right after getting home. A new job in a town I’ve lived in for 9 years (minus 11 months of the race). It seemed a good idea. Seemed like it would help me transition faster. The only good thing is I’m so busy I don’t have time to think. Which for now, I think is okay, because I need distraction and need to not feel everything at once.

I had the heaviest anxiety yesterday. More than I’ve had in years. I couldn’t sleep on Sunday night. I worked a split shift. I talked to a squamate. She’s been experiencing anxiety, too. We prayed for each other, for rest and real sleep. And what do you know, we both slept all night.

The States is an odd place to be back in. It doesn’t seem like taking everything in, taking even the little moments in, is okay any more. It doesn’t seem like taking things slow and easy is an option. It doesn’t seem like I can be who I became. It doesn’t seem like relationships and friendships are at the forefront. Like it’s not okay to love and care so deeply as I do now.

It feels like I have to be the person I was before I left. I can’t be her any more. I don’t even remember who I was. It almost feels like I forced a new character in an old setting. And that’s not even right, because the character isn’t totally new. Just different.

Re-entry reminds me of when my grandmas passed away four days apart a year and a half ago. I remember that season a lot. It was heavy and it was hard. But I had good friends who where there and helped me walk through it. Sometimes they carried me through it because I couldn’t walk it. Re-entry is hard. It’s like grieving and processing moving every month for a year, missing your people you’ve come to know you and who have come to know you. They know your heart, your deepest darkest places. But they know your light, too. The bright light you are capable of being. The glowstick that had to be broken in order to shine. But what happens when you feel more broken than month 1, when you had everything stripped away? What happens when you feel more broken than you ever remember being on the Race, or before?

You keep going.

I keep going.

I keep going because I did a lot of hard things in prep for the Race. I keep going because I did the dang thing, and I know I can go through hard things. But right now, things are hard.

In summary: re-entry is a bleeping b.