Okay, that was a bunch of small talk before.... now let's go for the jugular, the meat, the core, the real deal, the whole enchilada of these past couple of months.
Being home has been, uh, interesting.... yes, yes, that is a good word to describe life. It's been good in a lot of ways. I have loved seeing all my friends and family. I have loved not living out of my backpack.... I have a car for that now. I have personal space. I don't have to wash my clothes by hand. I can take a warm shower when I want, minus a couple minutes after my roommates jump out. No more debriefs or team meetings… woo hoo! Also, I no longer stick out like a soar thumb with my pasty white body and blonde curly hair. Also, have I mentioned rock climbing and biking and Guitar Hero and green chile chicken enchiladas??? Awe, yes... great things too! On the other hand, life has been pretty hard as well.
I don't know if I can truly describe the depth of what it has been like since my arrival home. All I can do is write about what I know to the best of my abilities, and hope that you all can relate in some way. Now not all my experiences are going to be the same for all WRer's. Please understand that. I can't speak for them, but I know some may relate.
Now when the Race ended, I was excited. I was ready to come home. I wasn't ready to leave my community and the adventure of it all, but I was ready to be done! I didn't know what to expect or anything. I just figured I would wing it when the time came. Um… not the wisest decision I ever made, but it sounded good at the time ;)!
So when I got home, life was awesome for the first couple of days/weeks. I got lots of good food, lots of attention, lots of sleep, lots of nothing, and lots of hugs and love. It was like being a newborn baby all over again!!! It was grand. However, it was shortly lived, and I figured that would happen. This isn't my first song and dance returning home from the mission field.
What started happening, is that I started missing my teammates. I missed them a lot. As much as my friends and family tried here, there was no way for them to replace what my teammates brought. I had all these inside jokes and phrases from the Race that no one here at home got, and that's not their fault. And as much as we all, the racers, wanted to remain in close contact, it was hard to do so. Our lives here at home are vastly different from our lives on the race. None of us know each others families, friends and lives in this realm, so it was hard to keep that close connection.
Also, as the weeks progressed, I was finding a lot of things that I used to enjoy before the race becoming mundane. Nothing I was doing was satisfying my thirst for life, which wasn't surprising. A typical day on the Race might have been fighting forest fires in Africa, or hiking the Great Wall, or holding orphans; whereas now, something really crazy and adventurous like that might happen once in a blue moon.
Another problem about returning home was wondering whatever happened to the people and the relationships we left behind. I know it's not in our hands, and it shouldn't be something we should worry about, but we do anyways. I know for a fact there wasn't always follow up with the people we met and cared about. So whatever happened to the woman in Africa that was dying helpless on the ground or the poor widow in Guatemala? The list goes on and on. We had a year of thousands of relationships. How are those people?
Lastly and probably the main reason to why life has been difficult, is where do I fit in now? A lot of things changed while being on the Race. Who I was before the Race and who I am now is somewhat different. I'm still the same goofy, adventurous Ginger, but parts have indeed changed. Parts of my character changed. My spirituality changed. My desires and wants changed. These parts that have changed don't allow me to just easily fall back into place like I would like them to. For times sake, I'm just going to talk about the spiritual aspect, because that is the biggest and hardest place for me, and this is where my experience is definitely going to differ from the other WRer's.
Before the Race, I used to be this solid vibrant Christian. I had the whole thing down to a T. I never thought my faith would be shaken. However, while on the Race, I had my eyes opened a lot. My desire for the Race was to pursue after truth and love, and as I went about those things, I saw a lot of things that made me question Christianity a lot, and I'm talking about the religion of Christianity and not Jesus Himself… make sense? What made me start to question things was by seeing a lot of churches and Christians only being consumed about numbers and about POWER and about cool stories that would bring glory to them and not to God and about money and about a bunch of other nonsense! That didn't seem like truth to me.
At first I could separate this from the God I knew, but somewhere a long the way it got blurry and I started to get bitter towards God for all that I saw and I started questioning salvation as well. I saw so many people this year suffer such a great deal from pain and hardships, and a lot of these people weren't saved and probably won't be because a lot of them were on their death beds. Also, I saw a lot of good people that weren't Christians that have a bigger heart than most people I know. I just can't imagine God making them suffer even more.
Now if you are Christian and reading this, know that I am absolutely terrified of how you are going to respond. People that I have told in the past have looked down on me and have tried to save me like I didn't know who God was. Please don't do that. It really hurts a lot. The only reason I am sharing any of this is because this is part of my story and to show why it has been hard to fit in, because even within the Christian community it has been hard to fit back in. I just don't fit the mold anymore. I still go to church and enjoy it. I have an awesome pastor and a few good friends that are understanding, but I'm still on the pursuit of what is truth.
I didn't ask for this… well maybe I did with wanting to pursue after truth. However, this is not what I wanted to happen, but this IS what has happened and is happening in my life.
So where do I fit in? I don't know, but I'm going with the flow and I'll see where I end up.
So there you all go. I know this was intense and very controversial. Sorry! I know there has to be other's out there that feel the same way. This is for you!
The Gang!
