Processing

Guess who's been home for a week now. 

(WHAT?)

This weekend I promised myself that I'd start trying to communicate with the outside world by Monday. 

I procrastinated a day, sorry. 

A week ago, I landed in Knoxville (at 11 p.m.--yikes) to find this gaggle of people waiting for me: 

 

It was awesome.

 

There were four signs, six different kinds of m&m's, one princess fairytale book, and twenty-four people waiting for me to get off the plane. 

 I'm blessed. 

At Fellowship, Mike and Ruth Beagan (thanks, guys!) set up a reception for me with cake, cupcakes, and punch and strung pictures of my babies up in the middle of the room. 

Beautiful.

And now I'm hitting the very strange phenomenon commonly known as reverse culture shock.

Everything feels the same--sort of--but I have all this new stuff in my room and something seems to be really off. 

Did I go somewhere?

When I came back from my ten-week internship in Uganda, the shock was obvious. I was angry at America, I felt very out of place, and in social settings I was always labeled as "Laura who went to Africa". 

This time around, it seems to be a lot more subtle. 

I feel a bit like somebody has died, but I'm not ready to go back and look at their old stuff yet because it would be too hard. Part of me wants to pretend that I fit in the way I did before, because I'm not yet ready to process what's happened and who I've become. 

At some point, I need to ask a friend to sit down for a while and help me figure it out...but I might need a little more time before that happens. Which is ok, because readjusting takes time.

After all, I've only been here for a week. 

Weird.