Three Weeks Out

Well friends, I did it. I sat through an entire church service at my home congregation without crying. It took many looooong conversations with my very patient friends and a few gallons of fudge brownie ice cream to get to this milestone of re-entry, but I did it. And since I’ve finally gotten to this point, I figured I’d better blog about it. Makes sense, right?

So tomorrow marks three weeks home. I can’t believe it’s already been three weeks since I walked off that airplane in San Francisco and entered back into home life– and many emotions have surfaced under the California sun over the last few weeks. I’ve felt it all: happy to be home, relieved to not have to live out of a suitcase, sad because my new friends are thousands of miles away, mad at the injustice of the world, discouraged because no one understands, and encouraged to have experienced all that I did this summer.

Being home has been a roller coaster ride, but I am beginning to learn that my time in Romania has permeated every crevice of my being, and home never has to be the same again (not like I want it to!).I believe the weirdest and hardest part of reentry is our interactions with people who used to be so incredibly familiar to us. It was hard to sit across from people who were once so familiar to me and realize I couldn’t relate to them as well as I used to. I desperately wanted to get back to the way things used to be, easy conversation and tons of laughter, but after Romania, even this was difficult.