365 Days Later

When I got home, I couldn’t look at my pictures for about six weeks, it was too hard. I’d talk about it any chance I got, but pictures, that one struck a nerve. 

I sat down one day just frustrated with where I was. I didn’t want to be home, I didn’t want to be in America. I didn’t want to be comfortable. But I was. And to some level, I couldn’t do anything about it. 

At first, when you have an experience like that, it’s thrilling to share it because it’s so incredibly fresh. But once the novelty of being home wears off, things change. Eventually, home started to feel confining, a trap really. It was less of a welcome homecoming then longer I stayed.

How are you supposed to prepare to go back to a place unscathed by the world, by your experiences? A place that is so different than you remember, but eerily everything is the exact same too. 

These were some of my thoughts, my frustrations. Here is the thing I didn’t realize at the time: everyone is feeling all these things, but nobody can claim the words to depict what they feel (oh, foreshadowing).

So I wrote. It’s what I do. In about 15 minutes I wrote a post called “The Truth About Semester at Sea” about what it actually meant for me. And if I’m being totally honest, I didn’t really expect anyone other than my mom to read it. 

Funny how things work. When I went to bed that night 4,500 people had read it. And since then it has only continued that momentum. I was getting messages from people who went on previous voyages, people who wanted to go, and people who went on totally different abroad programs. Turns out, a whole lot of people were feeling the same things I was. I’m glad I could put to words what many of you are feeling, it certainly helped me to get it out. 

I read that post again today, which marks exactly 365 days since I’ve been on the ship. And well, let’s just say it made me cry. I still feel every single emotion that I felt when I initially wrote it. Every. Single. One. 

I didn’t think I would. I thought that the excitement of my experiences would have normalized and it would be an ‘oh yeah, did that’ sort of feeling. 

Nope, a year later and so much has changed, yet nothing has changed at all. And I presume that it will be that way for a long, long time. 

If I could tell April 21, 2019 Katelyn something, the girl who was getting off the ship in tears because it was all over, I would tell her that it’s not over. It never will be. That the next year will be everything opposite of what you expect, but you’re going to love it.

I truly thought that the day I got off the ship, I’d be writing the last page to a special book in my life. But as it turns out, I was just closing that chapter. The next year would be a whole new chapter, SAS intertwined throughout it all. 

Every day a lesson I learned from SAS comes up. Every day I have a flashback to something I did while I was gone. Every day I interact with friends from my voyage. I get messages daily from you guys who are coming home, signing up, and even preparing for your own voyages asking for my advice. 

I’m still processing those experiences, those emotions, those feelings (good and bad). I STILL laugh at the time Caroline got absolutely demolished by a wave in Ghana. I STILL get worried about sending Kyle on an overnight bus by himself in Myanmar (in hindsight, this was moronic I know, but c’est la vie, he’s fine). I STILL remember the feeling of jumping off a bridge in South Africa with nothing but a couple straps on my ankles. My life for 106 days meant putting on discomfort and uncertainty like it was a pair of shoes, it went everywhere with you until you were home and took them off. And I absolutely loved it. 

I remember coming home and still wanting to put those shoes back on, but I couldn’t, I was home, everything was comfortable. It took a while to be okay with where I was, about six months. And those six months kind of sucked. Let’s call it a 6-month emotional hangover. 

Everyone from my voyage kind of fell into the same rhythm of trying to process it felt like. For me, it wasn’t until I started planning another big trip that I really felt like I had a true handle on my life again. But like SAS, I learned SO dang much during those 6 months. So much about myself, those around me, about life. 

Just as it should be. 

As I read back through that post and felt all those emotions, it reminded me how important it is to embrace the change. How important it is to put on a curiosity hat and never take it off. How important it is to learn from yourself and those around you. And how important it is to carry your experiences with you, they’re your badges of honor after all. 

Like I said, April 21, 2019 Katelyn had no idea what the next year would look like. She thought it would be significantly different. Turns out, she thought a lot of things and that’s good. But as it also turns out, life is working out better than she thought. I think April 21, 2019 Katelyn would be proud of how far April 21, 2020 Katelyn has come and how she’s turned out. 

As a reminder, I’ve been looking back at a lot of those pictures today. And while it was hard to look at those pictures then, now it’s one of my favorite things, and like many things, I’m sure I’ll enjoy it more as time goes on.  

So I leave you with this: Don’t underestimate how things will impact your life. Don’t forget to be curious. Don’t forget to look at how far you’ve come. And for the love of all things, don’t stop exploring. 

Hopefully, this made sense to someone and if not it’ll be a good reminder for me (although I’m sure my mom liked it, lol). 

Til next time, 

Katelyn