Some of the best dinner party stories my family has of me revolve around me baking something and completely forgetting an important ingredient. One time, it was a cake, and I forgot flour. Another time, it was cornbread, and I forgot sugar.
And then there's the time I messed up Jello.
It's been a few years since I've had any yearning to compose this particular dish, but if I recall correctly, Jello calls for exactly two ingredients: water and Jello powder. Rocket science it is not.
And to this day, I have zero freaking clue how I managed to botch it. But, uh, I did.
I messed up Jello.
My standard (albeit, uncompleted) high school education had not prepared me for the task at hand. In addition, the job had been commissioned by my then-boyfriend's mother, which only raised the stakes. I stared into the warbling bowl of dye and began to wonder why classes like Armenian Philosophy hadn't been replaced with something more applicable, something more along the lines of Domestic Cooking for the Beginner College Girlfriend.
Anyway, the Jello didn't work. Half an inch deep and darker than grenadine, it cemented into the pan, refusing to be pierced even by a steak knife. Panicked, I stashed it in the freezer (???) so his family wouldn't learn about my embarrassing inability to effectively combine water and sugar, and also out of a minor paranoia that his mom would phone the Secretary of State and suggest they revoke more serious, judgement-oriented tasks, like, say, operating a motor vehicle.
Thinking about the World Race ending has me feeling like I did after making that Jello. Uncertain. Unprepared. Questioning myself, questioning everything.
"Isn't it pretty simple? Get off the plane, sleep for a few days, tell stories, fall back into rhythm?"
"Or maybe it's not. Maybe I'll spend a week sleeping off jet lag, only to wake up and find out that seven days was enough time for everyone to feel accustomed to my presence again. Life will continue going on around me, and after a few catch-ups, I'll spend the summer carrying a year's worth of stories and questions that no one will want to hear repeated."
I'm guessing that, like most things in life, it'll be hard to prepare for, and I won't know what to do until the morning I wake up in my bed for the first time in a year.
And maybe it's too soon to ask for this, especially given how flakey I've been lately, but please - if you can, give me an extra helping of grace.
If I've stopped replying to almost all texts from people back home, it's only because I'm too busy soaking up the presence and joy of the women around me.
I only have 19 more mornings to wander downstairs and see Faith sipping coffee with one hand and flipping through her Bible with another. A handful more opportunities to lie head-to-head with Felicia and watch late-night Gossip Girl reruns, or eat sandy French fries and find hermit crabs on the beach with Aubrey.
They say, "the way you end one season determines how you begin another." I want to end The World Race mentally present and wholly satisfied in whatever I'm doing at any moment.
Life here in Vietnam is worthy of a movie, and I really mean that. This month, we take turns working shifts at an English speaking coffee shoppe, anywhere between two and four hours a day. Our hostel is a five minute walk from the beach, maybe.
When I go to work, I jump on a single speed land cruiser and pedal 5 miles across the bay bridge and through the city traffic, always amazed to make it alive, sweat gluing my clothes to my skin. Last night Felicia and I swam out away from the coast and floated on our backs, watching the stars come out through the clouds, the neon hotel shoreline reflecting off the surface of the moving inky ocean like a broken kaleidoscope.
Right now, I'm exactly where I want to be. And if you're like me, you can count on one hand the number of times you've ever felt that way in life.
I need to let go of the fear that you're going to forget how to love me.
The fear that I won't have enough time to catch up, or won't be able to. I need to know that right now, this moment, is the only time I'm expected to exist inside of.
So...well, that's all for now, really.
Love you.
(Annnnd I'm gonna go jump in the ocean again.)