Car-ride conversations

Kristy and I were talking in the car tonight on the way home from a movie and it got me thinking/processing...

This journey, the unimaginable event of watching someone’s lifeless body being carried from the ocean, when just hours before you had been eating together across the table – it changes you; it has to. It’s made me different and the “me” that I was before, isn’t me anymore. I’m altered. A part of me died with Lyn but something new is in its place. I’m still whole, but in a new way.

I’ve experienced this before, being changed, though not in such a harsh way. Each time I’ve left home and journeyed to new places I’ve come back different. To see the things that I’ve seen in my life, if I hadn’t been changed by those events, those sights, I’d fear I wasn’t human. The poverty of India’s slums, the despair at the death camp of Auschwitz, the freedom felt in the midst of the ruins of the Berlin wall, the shear greatness of the pyramids of Egypt and the deep shadows of loneliness in the eyes of a Chinese orphan…these are things that I can tell you about but you’ll never understand; you’ll never truly feel what I’ve felt and although I know you’ll try to relate and find familiar ground, there will be none. Its no ones fault, it just is. These are all my adventures – ones that I’ve done, in many ways, alone – or at least it feels that way. Though I’ve always traveled with groups &/or friends…9 out of 10 times I’ve come home alone. My traveling friends live elsewhere or else we have grown apart over the years… whatever the case, I come home to people who love me but can never understand me.

This trip was/ is different. For the first time I have people I can see on a regular basis that know, truly KNOW, what it was like. They know what smells permeated the air, what color the water was, how hot the sun felt on the skin and how instantaneously everything changed. To know that without words, I can look at one of them and say everything, adds a new step to this processing thing. For the first time I have people to process with, to relate to, to talk to. I have “people”. Its like a secret club that we’ve all reluctantly been inducted to and if we have to be in it, at least we are in it together and close by. In having them near, in knowing that they are around, I feel I have the freedom to actually process, to take my time and really sort through the alterations that have occurred in me on this trip (and maybe even time to authentically process through the sum of all my travels/experiences). For once I feel like I don’t have to just get back to being “me,” or at least the me that I was before I left, the “me” that everyone is comfortable with. I feel free, I don’ t know words that can truly explain it, but in the past, going through experiences alone, its exhausting coming home. Everyone wants you to tell them everything and yet no matter how long I talk or how detailed my storytelling, I never had a hope of anyone understanding me. I felt misplaced, and rather than take the time to awkwardly and silently process through it all alone, I jumped back into “normal” life. Being the people pleaser that I am, I did the routine, I did what I was supposed to – I was “me” again, and yet, inside I think I’ve always still felt a bit misunderstood. The double-edged sword of experiencing different things is that in the midst of the amazing adventures, I feel I’ve widened the imaginary gap between myself and everyone else. I’ve added a new hurdle for people to truly know me or understand me. My experiences aren’t “the norm.”; they aren’t everyday things that people do and so I find myself less relateable, less likely to “fit” in. I no longer fit into the neat box of “me” that everyone is used to. It’s lonely, and for those of you who’ve been through similar things, which I actually believe is probably quite a few of you, its painful – growing pains type painful, good in the long run but still uncomfortable. I am certain everyone, if they’ve lived at all, has probably had similar feelings and yet, though I know I’m not alone – it certainly feels that way at times. This is the first time I haven’t’ felt isolated, I finally have “people” and with that comes a comfort. I’m no longer alone on my imaginary island with everyone else being pushed farther away. This time, I have company and for some odd reason, they make me feel secure enough in myself to go through an authentic journey of processing (what ever that may look like). Its crazy and doesn't fully make sense - but its me, or at least the present me ;)