In June I left the state to study Linguistics. I came home on an intellectual and emotional high, knowing in only two weeks I would be heading out on another, three-week trip overseas. I think the immediacy of another trip created a suspension bridge tower: I didn't have time sink all the way down to earth in between.
On the trip, living presently in almost every moment created an effect I might call "child time": time standing almost still in the midst of absorbing new experiences! (Remember the first time or two you learned a birthday of yours was looming in the very near distance of, say, two or three weeks, and how absolutely far away that heralded date was?)
After only three weeks, I came home feeling I have been gone for ages. Two weeks at home was not enough to process through the summer. My summer at school is full of wonderful and important memories, but the trip I just took is a huge boulder, landed from outer space with an undramatic but juggernaut-like thump. So imagine a sunny path through the month of June, up and over the top of the summer, turning a little more golden in color near the end. Merging abruptly with the main highway in August, there was a short, fierce section of old highway, but I drove those two weeks with glee! And then Whee! up in the air and over the ocean for a September real-life version of a theme park high! And what fun! How many rides! How many thrills! So many thrills and then another day to start over again, and again, and again; not forgetting three days at different "water parks".....and then... a few days in the lounge and arcade.... and a few more small rides... and then, with a final series of loop-de-loops and tickle-bellies (the official name for the falling feeling you get when you're accelerating over the crest of a roller coaster mountain),,,,,
I was plopped back in my nest just like the little baby bird who went searching for his mother.
An untidy, neglected nest.
I was prepared for something called reverse culture shock. I knew it would try to surprise me, but I was ready for it! But I was wrong. I was prepared for people not to be interested in my stories. I was prepared for jet lag (or thought so, since I felt caught up on sleep quickly and returned to a normal sleep schedule quickly). I forgot to be prepared for people expecting me to be the same person. It hit me at work today as tiredness, a desire to cry, and a foggy self-deprecation and inability to assert myself disconnected me from the team today. As a team they were very kind to me, but communication was out the window at a time I needed to be communicating and leading.
So I crawled into bed when I got home and took up the sword in the exhausting dream world I've been traversing since getting home.
That's okay. I begin to feel better about the process. I thank the Lord for the mysterious, ingenious psycho-metabolism of dreaming, digesting life somehow into long-term understanding of experiences. Journaling will probably help too. Bless the Lord.
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