We finally left the trenches (Honduras) and we flew back to the states.

Our travel day was around eight hours: a four-hour drive to the airport, a flight to Miami, another to Georgia, and then an hour drive to the AIM base. There, we were blessed with Chick-fil-A for the first time in eight months… glorious. We’re currently in Black Mountain, North Carolina, working with Adventures Relief for the week. I got to power wash yesterday, which was fun because I feel like I’m a pro from our last time being here. I guess spending hours upon hours power washing tables does really set you up for the future. Being back in America has been… strange. It’s comforting, familiar, easy. I can order food without thinking, go to church without translation, and blend in without feeling like an outsider. But at the same time, it doesn’t feel quite like home anymore.

I always thought the saying was the grass is greener on the other side was kind of stupid, but it is painfully true. Braden asked me the other day if I think regrets are a thing and what I have regrets about from on the race. I think I spent a lot of my time on the race wishing that I could be somewhere else. Sometimes that meant being in Malaysia, wishing that I was at home. Sometimes that meant sitting at ministry wishing I was at a coffee shop. And sometimes that meant being in Honduras, wishing that I was in Swazi.

Life has a funny way of making you wish for the things you just can’t have.

There’s been a lot of times where I have missed the comfort of home so much. It’s all that I wanted being out of the country. But now that I’m here, it doesn’t feel so at home anymore. I saw this Instagram reel the other day, saying that the people were the things that made places feel at home, not the places themselves. As I watched that in my tent, covered in dirt, surrounded by the smell of horse and human poop, I laughed. I went to bed, wishing I was at home. This morning I woke up in America and it wasn’t so funny anymore. Now I sit and I look at my friends and I feel it. And I wish that I lived in my tent again, covered in clay, sleeping on my wet, sleeping pad, slightly malnourished, and still had 30 more days to love these people up close again.

Granted, I am really thankful for normal showers. But I think I would trade hot showers forever to do it all over again with these people.

I’m sad and sappy and nostalgic. Feeling a little bit less patriotic. And I really really love my friends.

18 days left and I’m making it a priority to have no regrets.