I dubbed myself bizarre, weird, peculiar, unusual, odd. The past four months were all I could think about but NO ONE could understand. And, I embraced this. I was proud of it. I was not even close to normal. I was nothing like the next person on the street. The only other people who were even worth explaining anything to were the people who had experienced it with me. Even my friends who had studied abroad on other programs couldn't completely comprehend. People may have said they "wanted to hear about it" but were they worth explaining it to? Would they really want to listen past 3 minutes when I knew it would take hours to just explain the first day?
I played with this circumstance. When people I had just met started asking about me, my life, I would blurt out within the first 2 minutes, "I just travelled around the world for four months." Most times they shut down. They didn't want to begin to understand what I had experienced and I didn't want to begin to help them. I was angry that they would never completely understand yet too haughty to let them try.
Between moments like these I interjected moments of complete honesty and I would answer people's questions with the 15-minute-long answers they deserved. Most likely, they didn't want to hear all that I had to say about the four hours I spent in Mauritius or that cab driver I had had the first day in Vietnam, but I didn't care. I had travelled around the world so I had the right to talk. They they had an obligation to listen, even if it made them hugely regret asking the question in the first place.
Adjusting to things after SAS is something that I think will be going on for a long time to come. But, I now realize, and am continuing to realize, how wrong I was to take that strong, uncharacteristically arrogant stance when I initially came home.
I am no different than the next person on the street. For all I know, they have been around he world 10 times and back to tell about. I am weird, bizarre, whatever you want to call it. But, isn't everyone? We all simultaneously lead very different lives that affect us in very different ways and make us our own sort of unusual, weird, and odd. So, maybe the next person walking on the street did not travel around the world. They may never have left their Podunk little town in suburban America. But, they may be able to understand in some way in the same way I may be only be able to understand their life to a certain extent.
There is something to be said for being one of the thousands of backpackers wandering the streets of Hong Kong looking for a hostel and for getting taken on a wild rickshaw drive in a country where you don't speak the language. There is something to be said for sharing an experience with 500 people and for being out of your element with people you don't know. But, that is just one story.
So, what am I getting at? What is the punch line? The fireworks at the end? The happily ever after?My story is just as worth telling as the next. But, it IS worth telling! Even to those who haven't left their Podunk town in hickville Florida. And it might seem hard, overwhelming, daunting to try tell it. Becuase, no, not everyone has been to Accra, Ghana. But, you try, because you should. In the same way, your life is a story to write. And, no, you don't have to tell everyone about it or write a best selling autobiography. But, don't forget that it is yours to do with it what you want. It has a greater strength than you may ever know until you tell it. You are the creator, the author. It is yours to tell.