A year ago, I climbed aboard a one-way plane from Kenya. Though I'd asked to come back a year early, the actual date of my leaving was decided on suddenly and made the leaving that much harder. There were times during the days leading up to my departure that I thought surely my heart couldn't take any more, and would just give up beating in my chest out of exhaustion. Leaving Kenya was, without a doubt, the hardest thing I've ever done.
Yet here I am, a year later. I am. It was a trying year at times, and I didn't always handle it gracefully. I shut people out a lot when I first came back. I drank more than I should have. I complained all the time, both out loud and silently. I hated that I wasn't in Kenya, I hated that I had to leave my dogs and my kids and my friends, I hated that the weather was cold, I hated that I wasn't working and wasn't sure why I was waking up in the mornings.
But I also kept moving. I kept putting one foot in front of the other. And it may have been slow going, but I was able to move into the next chapter of my life.
I am terrible at making five-year plans and the like, because I know life has a way of throwing curveballs at you, and I'd hate to miss opportunities because I'm married to an idea of where I should be by this point. But I'm just about exactly where I imagined I'd be by a year back in the States. I'm settled in, living with some great friends. I started my new career this year and am loving it. I started back to school. I've made new friends and reconnected with old friends.
I've adjusted more to living here again. I don't have to stop and think about which side of the car is the driver's side, and I go to the grocery store more than once per week if I need to. I turn on the lights during the day because the windows here don't let in as much light, and I don't usually feel guilty about it. I enjoy being able to blend into the background again (a luxury I was never afforded in Kenya), and I brought over my first and favorite dog to live with me here.
I still wonder if I'm settling, since I no longer wake up every morning feeling like I'm making a tangible, significant difference in the world. I don't get to watch the sun set over the Rift Valley from my stoop in the evenings, and I don't get to sing "How Great Thou Art" in Swahili on Sundays. But is it settling if I haven't really settled?
People ask me all the time if I'm ever going back, and my usual answer is "probably not long-term again." I hate definitives like "yes" and "no" like I hate five-year plans. I will always go back. I left half my heart 8,000 miles away in a compound filled with 150 or so children and a dozen dogs and a handful of the hardest-working people I have ever met in my life. I left it in the cloud-covered Ngong Hills and on stage with the worship team at Karen Vineyard Church and with the sweet ladies selling beaded jewelry at the end of the road. I left it with my goddaughter Shannah and my favorite little girl Kanje and a whole class full of children who I taught from class 4 through class 8. I left it with the dirt roads and the nyama choma and the giraffes who'd kiss you for food. How could I not go back?
I'm accepting the changes. If and when I go back, it won't be the same. It's not a goal on my calendar anymore like it was for years. I don't feel the same about missions or my faith or my goals in life as I did even five years ago, and I'm ok with that. I want to keep my soul fertile for the changes. I don't spend my days reminding kids with more difficult lives than most can imagine that they're loved, but I do spend my days reminding scared, sick animals that they're loved. I don't get to walk along the edge of the Rift Valley when I walk my dogs, but I do get to be much nearer my friends and family all the time and not just for a few days per year.
Moving to Kenya was the best thing and the worst thing I've ever done. Leaving Kenya was the best thing and the worst thing I've ever done. I love being back in the US, and I hate being back in the US. And this is my normal. It is the normal of anyone who's ever lived and loved and moved thousands of miles away. And it was not more than my heart could handle. Even while I am thankful for where I am, and mourn the life I no longer have, and continue to grow through the changes, my heart beats to remind me: I am. I am. I am. I am.
