Tuesday, October 14, 2014

To My Friends

Alright. This post has to happen because until it does, I can't move on with my writing life! (Or my life period, for that matter.)

So here's how we're gonna do this--the question no one actually cares to ask but can't seem to stop themselves from asking: "How's the adjustment back from your mission going?"

First matter of business, I feel super weird about the fact that I have a blog. I keep waiting thinking maybe it'll go away or maybe I'll remember why I started it in the first place. Ha. No such luck. So instead I'll just keep it going for the moment, for my friends or anybody who cares.

Second item: on Thursday last, in the middle of the cleaning-supplies aisle in the grocery store, I burst into tears. Like, BURST into tears. I was somewhere between the OxiClean and shoe polish. The butter is so expensive in America, and all the produce is organized maniacally like a factory, and the entire width of the yogurt "aisle" is shorter than my arm, and apparently sometime in the last year and a half they stopped making the only kind of laundry detergent that I liked. Also, everyone around me is speaking English.

I mean, I tried to pull myself together. No one except crazy people burst into tears in the middle of the OxiClean and shoe polish. I am not crazy. I just can't find the food I like because it's all in France!

So to summarize: I am currently incapable of grocery shopping.

Then we've got the daily "I just said what?" moments: Today a guy showed up at my door. More like I showed up at my door and he was outside plugging his phone into our porch wall (??), so I let him in, and he commented on how I was wearing two different colors of socks. I retorted, "They're gray and black. Gray and black aren't colors." Yep I actually said that. No social tact.

This is, of course, to say nothing of the fact that I suddenly have a streak of benevolence-bordering-on-affection for bugs, white eggshells creep me out, I want to use exclamation marks all the time!, and I still reach for the flush button on the top-center of the toilet.

What is to be said about this. Well, it took me two months to write. Talk about a blockage. I'm not entirely sure how one goes about breaking an 18-month writing hiatus, but likewise I'm not entirely sure how one goes about saying something about those 18 months that could wrap a pretty little bow on it all and let it be tucked away somewhere nice on a shelf to sit for the rest of forever. I think I'm hesitant to let go. Once you think through everything and set those thinks down on paper, the book is written. So I imagine this will be the work of the next few years--working out what my mission meant then and what it means now and what words are the hooks that untangle it all.

So thanks for being patient with me.
Love,

4 comments:

  1. What words are hooks that untangle it all!! Amazing thought! Six year I've been home and maybe one hook untangled a few things but for now I still write to try and figure it out. I continue to think about it daily and EVERY TIME i go to the grocery store I feel guilty to be among so much food. If you ever need someone who doesn't believe in pretty bows to package up missions then come sit with me and talk a while.

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    1. Thank you Anna--same heart. I think I probably will think of my mission every day for the rest of my life, and it's good to know I'm not the only one! We should sit and talk a while. Last time it left me with things to think about for two years.

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  2. This: "and what words are the hooks that untangle it all." It's a wonderful phrase. Really, really good writing. (Oh! I see someone else liked it, too!)

    I have a lot to say, actually. It's strange, but I thought of you yesterday as I was driving home from wherever I was. I thought, "I need to write to Carolyn." And I don't even really know you very well. But I thought of you and wondered how you were doing and what you were doing. I imagined that you were having a difficult time adjusting to this big, flashy country of ours, and though I've never had to come home after living abroad, I do know what it's like to feel out of place. My suggestion to you is to try really hard to write about it, whether it's here or in your journal. I think working through everything with words will prove to be extremely therapeutic and helpful -- especially for you. So do it! Force yourself to write a little bit every day. Write until the words start flowing. They will come, and they will be a comfort to you.

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  3. I can do your grocery shopping.

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