back home

Fitting into my place back at home has been, for the most part, much less difficult than I thought it would be. I find myself slipping easily into the hole I left, stumbling only occasionally over the things that have changed since I've been gone. Other than the fact that I get hugs from every friend I greet and that everyone clapped for me when they saw me in church on Sunday, it's almost as if I'd never left. I can still navigate around my town with my brain on autopilot, which is a good thing for someone as directionally handicapped as myself. My youth group kids haven't changed, except for the fact that they break out new-to-me moves when we push back the couches for dance parties in my living room. My dad still cracks the same corny jokes, and I still laugh and roll my eyes. Looking in at the scene, it's as though I've simply been grafted back into all this, a loose tile slipped into its former place; any casual observer in my life right now would be hard-pressed to find the seam.

And yet.

I find myself struggling to write about my heart right now, unsure of how to explain how it all feels from this side. It's hard, because on the surface, it seems like nothing has changed. I wake up, go about my day, meet my cousin and sister for coffee and go shopping with them. I come home and check my e-mail and plan my wedding and watch inane reality shows on my family's new, insanely large TV. I interact with my world much as I always have, and my world doesn't seem to have changed much.

It must be me, then. I must have changed in some fundamental way, enough that I feel like I'm just barely faking it well enough that people don't notice that I don't belong here. Sure, that casual observer might not be able to see the cracks it left when I broke away and then tried to fit back in, but to me they're painfully obvious. I find myself almost unable to spend money, having to justify every purchase to myself a hundred times before I'll hand over my cash. (I even asked Phil, in all seriousness, if eight dollars was too much for him to spend on the ring we bought from a lady on a street corner to replace the tie-wrap which was, unfortunately, cutting grooves into my finger.) I walk through grocery stores and I get far too enthusiastic over things like strawberries and fresh bell peppers, drawing strange looks from fellow shoppers as I stand and stare at the colorful displays. I have a hard time not taking strangers' babies in my arms, forgetting sometimes almost too late that it's not acceptable in this world. That people here are insular and wary and don't seem to notice you when you're standing shoulder to shoulder with them in a line.

The outreach in Liberia was the hardest ten months I've ever known, and the simple truth is that I've come back different. My heart cries a million stories, of Abraham and Sadie and Shidou and Bendu and Joanna and Friend and Catherine and Richie and Nicholas. My arms are empty and longing for my little Liberian babies, my Anthony and Prince and Sonnie and Kumassah and Oscar and Greg. No one here has ever seen these people, no one here has lived these stories, and so of course they can't understand. And I can't expect them to. We are at an impasse.

So I suppose I'll just keep on trying to blend in. I'll do my best to make sure they don't notice how uncomfortable I've become, and as soon as the chance is given to me, I'll pack my bags and I'll fly from here. Back to a ship in a port in West Africa. Back home.