My heart hurts today. Or maybe it's my stomach.
Acknowledging fresh emotional pain, a noticeable lack of fruit in my diet, and managing the mystical, magical act of "re-entry" - the process of returning home, which, like raising a child, comes with absolutely no instruction manual whatsoever - has got me some sort of crazy.
It's the act of saying hello to a new season, and goodbye to another - all in the same breath.
And like the way summer slowly melts into the cool of autumn, the majority of my surroundings and lifestyle still remain intact. But above every passing hour hangs the hint of a shadow signaling the sunset on many patterns and ideas. Around every corner, between the branches of lush greenery, yellow leaves rustle in the changing wind. Like a ball slowly rolling, the change is slow now, but gaining momentum and picking up speed, a force impossible to stop, creating new paths and breaking down anything premature or not fully developed.
Life is changing, and there's nothing I can do except let it happen.
(all photos: Tabitha Turner)
The thought of going home produces a whole wide range of emotions spanning from unimaginable joy to steely apathy to fear so dark it leaves me immobile, literally.
In my head, I picture myself two weeks from now, sprawled across the carpet of my mom's living room, alternative blasting from our battery-charged portable speaker, verbally tantruming, "What do people DO all day?!"
A lot of life has happened on the Race. A lot of life happened to me, and a lot happened to people close to me.
Since I left last September, my grandpa died, and two of my best friends got married. One sister underwent double brain surgery, and the other moved out of my mom's house - to Poland. My best friend left to study abroad in England. I did something I swore I wouldn't do: I fell for a friend of mine, and then let that person go to someone else.
When I was in Greece, I made a deal with God.
Crouched over yet another heap of unpacked clothing and gear, I stared out the balcony window at the Aegean Sea in the distance, straining to hear the waves. It was 3 o'clock. Boats were probably just starting to launch, carrying the mid-afternoon wave of refugees across the hellish 4-mile stretch of ocean.
God, I can't get up off this floor unless you promise me that there is something better.
I can't leave this place - not until you tell me anywhere else is more worthy.
His response to the Kayla sitting balled atop a small altar of REI paraphernalia nine months ago is the same response I got last night at 2 am, as I lay awake with a head and stomach churning like the heavy-duty spin cycle on a front-loader.
It's the best you ever had, but it isn't the best.
I think you and I forget this a lot.
We're scared to let go of something, be it a season, a person, or a sweater, out of fear that parting with it will leave us emotionally bankrupt and mentally unbalanced. It's because we haven't yet seen what's ahead.
If I only knew what was in front of me, I'd be cool to let go.
But this is the best I've had. How do I know that trading in means trading up?
I spent six years of my life dreaming about the World Race. Which means, you guys, that I'm literally sitting in my dream today. It's 5:46pm on a Monday afternoon in Vietnam, and I'm sitting in my dream. In two weeks, it will be remembered and relived through this blog.
It's the best you ever had, but it isn't the best.
God's promises for me aren't despair, grief, or emotionally eating my way through the first few weeks of being back in America. No, no no. Quite the opposite, actually.
He takes us from glory to glory. Mountaintop to mountaintop.
That doesn't mean we don't get hurt or knocked down, but it means we don't stay down. His plans for me are establishment in peace, and purpose through obedience. The assurance that no matter how costly the sacrifice, I'm never in this life thing alone.
So, 'Merica - even though you're a bit of a hot mess these days, and I have no idea what kind of shenanigans await once I get back to you - I'll greet you with a smile and a wink.
This story is rapidly ending, but thank goodness basically everyone expects a sequel.
God and I are just getting started.
"And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart."