Hmm

I don't know what I want to write. Actually, it feels like there is so much to write that it is very overwhelming to even know where to begin. And then there's the whole 'I want this blog to make sense so I probably shouldn't just word vomit' thing and also the 'I don't want to be too vulnerable on here, but ah what the heck who even reads this anyways' thing. So here goes nothing...

Two weeks ago I got back from a very intense five months of travel, teaching, and sharing a bathroom with at least seven girls. I will make a post about the highs and lows of that experience another time. What I really want to talk about is how it feels to be back home. Have you ever been away for a long time and when you get back its like you can breathe again? That is how I feel. I have my sweet little room with twinkly lights and a candle. I have my blanket that my aunt knit me and my dog that follows me around. I know how to get everywhere in this town and my friends are always around. I really like that. I've been seemingly on the go for the past two and a half years, so its nice to settle back in.

About the settling back in process...

Its not pretty. It has consisted of a lot of ice-cream eating and random crying. Vicious journaling and intermittent Netflix watching. Some moments I feel frustrated for being so exhausted. I wish that I could have it all together. I wish that I could, I don't know, be up every morning by eight and be running again. Or getting into my hobbies. Or I wish that I would know how to communicate to people how I am feeling and why I am feeling that way. I want to know if me getting frustrated at little things is simply because I'm confused at the state of my life right now or because I genuinely have conflict with people. Apparently, all of this is normal. And I know it will pass because it happens every time that I get back from a long trip. But, somehow, it always takes me by surprise.

I guess what I am learning in all of this is that its okay to not be okay. And just because I feel not okay does not mean that everything is actually not okay, okay? There's something freeing about realizing that the Lord is holding my life in his hands and He knew about all of this before I did. He's not taken back by my response to things or how I need time. I've barely been able to let myself think about Cambodia because it feels so special and real. I'm just not ready to go there mentally yet. I will be, someday. But, He knows that. I actually think that God likes it when we rest in Him and stop holding ourselves to some imaginary standard of what that should look like.

So this is the weird dynamic that I am living in: feeling so safe in my home with my parents, but also feeling like I just went through the washer machine and its hard to tell up from down. 

PC: Mads Prathers

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