I just need quiet. I need me time. I need think time. So... I'm stuck in a blog. Don't get me wrong, I am overly excited to see my family. I have missed them tremendously... however, it's hard when you aren't sure up from down...
The trip home was long. It was more than long. It was 40 overwhelming.. exhausting..hours. I think higher powers were sending me a sign and trying to ease me back into the American life. I thought a lot. I journaled a lot. I met a lot of really interesting people.. and I got to do a lot of studying the people around me. It was almost unnerving to watch the people in JFK. I didn't know what to think, aside from my delirious behavior, overwhelmed is a complete understatement. Cell phones ringing... people talking about nonsense celebrity gossip... and the TV stations all showing the olympics and god forsaken celebrity this and that. It was like hearing trains and screams... horror... completely unbearable. How is it that celebrities get so much attention, while no one seems to care about how many starving children there are in the world, or genocides that no one knows about... yet, the news is plastered with talk about Kate and Tom Cruise's breakup, or whatever. Who really cares? Why do people spend so much money just to know the secrets of other peoples lives? It's utterly and completely disgusting. I guess I am a little sour coming back to America.
My worries started to consume me, and still are a tid-bit. I am trying to keep myself as positive as I can, and by using my knowledge and experience to "Africa Time" and pushing myself to live in the moment, not having a cell phone is probably one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life. It's hard to put into my head that I need to fight for peoples attention here because the technology is overwhelming everyone's brains... it's like everyone is under a spell. I almost wish I didn't have to get a cell phone again. I guess I can't really say that I am any better, because here I sit at my computer... writing to everyone... checking facebook, how to you run away from it? I guess you don't. I feel like I'm young again and just want to run to my parents arms and snuggle with them. But who am I kidding? I am almost 25 years old and I can't even run to my boyfriends arms. I guess I am just stuck in this funny isolated rut. I will climb out and be ok.. but it's going to take some time.
The hardest part about being back? Being completely bombarded with questions from everyone... asking about Africa.. how my life was there.. what my favorite experience was there. I understand that people want to know... I would be the same way if I was on the other side of the fence. But really? How am I supposed to sum up my experience in a conversation with people? I don't really know how... and the attention that people keep bombarding me with is making me want to run and hide under a rock. Probably sounds terrible, but I don't know how to explain it any other way. I suppose it was a good idea that I wrote a lot of my experiences down, as well as put them into my blog so that people could read them. However, not everyone wants to read my blog.... a lot of people go online for other things, and the last thing they want to read about is someones personal experiences living across the world. They want to read about our corrupt media... how it goes into celebrities personal lives... our idiotic politicians making fools of themselves... world news that is completely misinforming the united states as to what is really going on around the world. It saddens me... but that's the world we live in.
Now that I've been back for almost a week... I've gotten better.. but I still have my moments. My mom understands what I am going through, and she never once bombarded me with anything. I love that about my mom... she knows me inside and out. She knows when I need time by myself... she knows when to ask me how I am doing, and when to just let me be. I think if anyone else would of picked me up from the airport, I probably would have had a hernia due to my brain contracting from all the chaos.
I have now been at Chris' house since Sunday. It has been nice.. quiet.. and also tough. He knows that I need time and space, and he knows how I hate having the spot light turned onto me.. because frankly, he's the same way. However, it's hard getting back into our normal routine. The workout... the healthy diet... again, fighting for attention because of the obsession with looking good and body image. Knowing that he'd rather read about kettlebell workouts and diets rather than reading my blog...or looking at my African experience. I guess it's a boy thing. Sometimes I just want to cry, but remind myself of how silly it would be. Will I ever adjust to my normal "American lifestyle?" Probably not. But I will know how to live happily with what I have learned about myself while living halfway across the world. My life has changed forever. In a good way. And I am excited to start over with everything I have come to knowledge with.
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