I recently completed my term as a US-2, and spent a week at home visiting my family and friends.
During that week, I was asked nearly ten times if I had "found" a boyfriend, as if people thought I had been commissioned by the church for the sole purpose of moving across the country and searching for someone to enter into a relationship with.
I was not asked about the children I have spent almost every weekday with for the past two years. I was not asked about the culture of this community that I have grown to love. I was not asked about the friends I have made, or the things I do for fun.
I was not asked about the state of my faith, about the ways in which it has been challenged and changed by this experience. I was not asked about the things that I have struggled with, the things I have seen that have broken my heart, the things that have made me angry.
When I returned home after spending two years of my life as a missionary for the church, I was not asked to share any of my experiences with the church I am a member of. I also did not volunteer to speak, so perhaps that one is on me.
I was told by several people that they could never move to Alaska because it's too cold, a backhanded way of saying that they don't understand why I would enjoy it. I resisted the urge to respond that nobody ever asked them to move here, and that I could never stay in Virginia because it's too hot.
Once during that week, a friend sat down beside me and said "tell me all about it," and then listened while I did. And then on the way to the airport to return here, in the midst of talking about farming equipment and boats and trucks, all of the things I grew up rolling my eyes about when they dominated family conversations, but are now oddly comforting when I hear about them, my brother asked the question that meant the most to me. "Are you happy to be going back to Nome?"
Over the past two years, it has often seemed as if my happiness is the last thing on anyone's mind. And I tried my best not to complain about it, because that's what I signed up for. But I have not yet reached a point of selflessness where I never have the urge to talk about myself sometimes, or just feel like someone cares enough to want to know how I feel.
During this experience, I found that it became difficult to write about situations as they were happening, and my demanding job never seemed to allow my mind to slow down and gather my thoughts together enough to write a decent blog post anyway. But now life has slowed down a little, and I'm ready to look back and remember, and to look forward to what's next.
Perhaps it is not in my best interest to return with such a brutally honest post, but if there's one thing that this experience has taught me, it's that sometimes a brutally honest conversation is the best way to move forward.
