Normal

*image courtesy of flickr

In the final days of my mission in Italy I wrote a letter to myself. Basically it included advice to myself about how to return home, back to my old life, without turning back into my old self. I wanted the experiences I'd had to have a lasting effect on my life. I wanted to hang onto the things I had learned, I wanted to be a different person than I was when I had left home. I knew it would be hard, though, when nobody at home knew exactly what I'd experienced in that year and a half. I knew it would be easy to fall back into being the same person I was before I left.

Well, I came home and the adjustment was hard. I felt like a foreigner. I opened up with certain people who seemed genuinely interested in hearing about experiences from my mission. But, even then there was so much more that I felt just couldn't be communicated with words alone. I couldn't look at photos of my mission for the first six months without crying. I really felt like I was in a state of crisis, only nobody knew because I kept it all inside and put on my "happy face." Then, one day I decided to do something drastic with my hair (it was bad!)... and then I felt like it would have been more effective and less painful to wear a sign around my neck - "I'm in a crisis."

I was trying so hard to be "normal" again. I wanted to get back to a normal life. I wanted to function like a normal person. I wanted to feel comfortable in my own skin. I wanted to feel like who I was on the outside was the same as who I was on the inside, or how I felt on the inside. But, because there was so much going on inside my heart that I didn't understand myself, I didn't know how to act. I didn't know anymore what "normal" even meant.

While those feelings about returning home from Italy aren't *exactly* how I feel right now, I've realized that some of the feelings are very similar.

I feel like this experience has been sort of an accelerated course in humility, in faith, in patience, in pain, in heartache, in grieving. I've never been much of an over-achiever. I've always been happy to just do the bare minimum to get by. So, this accelerated course has not been easy.

I feel like a foreigner... even moreso than I did when I first arrived in Italy. I feel like I am completely unable to even attempt to make sense to myself or others what foreign things my heart is experiencing. I feel like my heart and my mind are in constant conflict. My mind tells me everything is going to be okay. But, as quoted in Steel Magnolias, "I wish somebody would explain it to my heart."

I'm trying to get back to a "normal" life, but I don't know what that means anymore. I want to be true to myself. I want to be honest with how I feel. But, the truth is that I'm completely confused by all that I feel. The fact that pain and peace constantly co-exist in my heart in the exact same moment doesn't make sense to me. But, they do. I feel like I should paint my face like one of those mimes where half of the face is painted happy and the other half is painted sad. Then, everyone would be as confused as I am about how I'm doing.

I want to soak up all the lessons I can learn from this, because I want to become a better person than I was before, but also because I don't want to go down this road again.

So, maybe it's already obvious... but I'm going to admit it outloud - I'm completely faking my way through this period right now, because that's all I know how to do. I feel like I'm having to re-learn the basics... even having to remind myself to breathe sometimes.

I know I'll eventually get back into a "normal" life, but it won't ever be whatever "normal" was before July 16th. I guess I'm in the process of reinventing "normal" for my own life... and I get the feeling it's going to take some time.

(And, if I mention to any of you that I'm thinking of changing my hairstyle in the midst of all of this, please convince me to wait at least a few more months... I really don't need a hair crisis like I had before.)