Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. May.
So here I sit. On a wooden chair at an African restaurant. I stare across the table at my beautiful friend Sami, and she looks back at me with the same, blank look of confusion on her face.
Surely this journey can't be over, I think to myself as Sami takes my hand and holds it so sweetly. How is it that I am sitting at a table surrounded with the same people I started this journey with 11 months ago, wondering how we got to this point? My body feels achy and my chest is heavy. I'm not hungry and nothing on the menu looks appetizing, but I force myself to order something. A mango chicken sandwich. I love mangoes. I love chicken. This will appease my stomach, even though it is being difficult at the moment.
So I place the order, and try to make chummy conversations with my precious friends around meas I anxiously await what is to come: the breakdown. I've been excited about going home all race; excited to see my family and friends, to celebrate birthdays, Christmas, and the 4th of July. It did not occur to me that leaving this lifestyle and family would be hard, I just thought the joys of going home would cover up all of those emotions. And they have for the most part, but now that it's here, those sorrows and reminders of closing this chapter of my life are starting to creep to the surface.
I've felt waves of it all day. The welling of emotions, and then a quick suppression of the tears by remembering a funny antidote or looking at a flashy billboard on the busy streets to distract myself. But I know it's coming and quite frankly I don't know when it will hit.
I thought it would hit when the bank teller told me I had to wait in line to withdraw cash, but instead I just slammed the ticket on the counter and mumbled, "I'm not doing this," and walked out. I thought it would come when my team took our last group photo on the beach, but I was too distracted by the fact that my cute little blue dress was almost suffocating me. I thought it would come when my teammate Kyle kissed me on the forehead and told me I was one of the best leaders he ever had. But no, it came at a much more unexpected time.
Bringing us back to the restaurant on the last night of my race, I had just placed an order for a mango-chicken sandwich and fresh cous cous on the side. About thirty minutes later my food came out. My friend Lia took a jab at my cous cous and immediately made a face. "It's really spicy," she managed to squeak out, and I immediately got a sad look on my face. I had been at the beach all week and my lips were burnt. And I DON'T do spicy foods, at all, much less when my lips are already on fire. So I decided to try the sandwich first. At this point I must remind you that I love mangoes. I took a generous bite of the sandwich and started rolling the flavors around in my mouth. The alarms started to go off as the spices began to harshly stomp on my taste buds. I winced and hollered and swallowed it quickly to remove the fire from my mouth. But it did not work. It actually did much worse; it triggered the breakdown.
The tears started welling, and then they started to flow. All of a sudden 8 faces were watching me weep as I gently pushed my food away and tried to conceal the flow of sappy emotion. The waiter gazed at me quizzically as he tried to mumble something about how the sauces here are sometimes too hot for westerners and that this particular sauce is the mildest one they had. I tried to wave him off gracefully and signal to my friends to please jump in for back up, but it was no use. The race was ending, and I hadn't expressed any sorrow about that fact until a simple taste displeased my mouth. And there I sat, crying uncontrollably at the fact that this season is finally over. I was too busy rejoicing about what is to come that I forgot to mourn over what was lost.
I tell this to you to give you a warning. I do not know what I will be like when I get home or what will remind me of the village people in Africa. I do not know what will make me weep, dance for joy, or roll with laughter, so I apologize in advance for any embarrassment that I may cause you in public places. Whether it is the price of shampoo, spicy foods, or a simple tall, white-chocolate mocha, something may cause a drastic change of my emotions, and for that I am sorry. I'm just not as ready as I once thought I was to leave this race, and I don't know how this transition is going to look, but I am prepared to see what God does with it. Even if it takes sitting on a couch at 1 AM trying to compose my thoughts into somewhat of a blog for several nights, I am prepared to do that. One step at a time...
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