Waiting

Still trying to mentally prepare for heading back to the States. I hate the waiting; it’s making it difficult to enjoy my last few days here since I’m constantly thinking about what needs to be done. I still can’t get used to the idea that this is my life. Yesterday I spent the evening cooking with 3 Kenyan acrobats after I met a man from Brooklyn who had befriended them while couch-surfing with them in Nairobi. I’m still trying to make sense of how I’ll explain things like this to everyone back home. I don’t think that going back should be this hard, but maybe there is some truth to the saying “you can’t go home again”. It’s not that I’m not looking forward to seeing everyone it’s that I don’t understand how I’ll merge this new life with my life back in the States. I don’t know how to create a bridge between these two worlds so it doesn’t seem like I’ve just fallen off the face of the planet for 3 months and then suddenly reappeared. And not just reappeared but reappeared profoundly changed. I’m more sure of who I am: a reluctant American, a Jew, open and non judgmental, content, and wanting to experience more. More certain of what I want: a year abroad, to be the crazy auntie in the family, a future with Him, to live communally, to live wholly and completely, however I need to achieve that. I want to be filled with more “when I was picking coffee beans in Guatemala” stories, and I’ve had an excellent start, but it’s going to be difficult to integrate those things into my life in rural Ohio. I suppose each experience strengthens me in a different way and my time back will simply be a coffee bean story for when I’m living in Italy.