Detained. Denied. Deported.

It is five and a half weeks now since I went to Britian. It was a short stay, thirteen hours in Heathrow Airport. I spent a lot of time snoozing on benches, my arms around my baggage or answering endless questions. I was tired and hungry from an overnight flight and one muffin for dinner, breakfast and lunch. I left the USA at 7pm Friday. I returned to the USA at 7pm Saturday. In twenty-four hours my life changed forever (see the Switchfoot song "Twenty-Four"). I have been meaning to write this blog ever since. I came up with the title days after my return to my own country. It was a beautiful feeling walking into the USA free and legal, able to go anywhere and do whatever I liked. Sometimes it seems that our culture ignores people too much, but I was glad to be ignored. It is so much better than being detained.
For weeks after my aborted trip to Great Britain I concentrated on getting a life together. I have to get in school. I have to get a job. I have to settle in a new living place. I have to get my car inspected. I have to get over the shock. That shock kept reverberating through my mind, heart and soul, but the shock of my experiences in Heathrow, harrowing as they were, is merely an echo of the shock contained in the radical reordering of my life that followed the day of September 16th.
For months leading up to the 15th of September I assiduously and intentionaly separated myself from my life. My job, my school, my church, my family, my apartment, my cat, my friends, even my car - all these things I had left, and I left them expecting not to be back. I wasn't coming home for Christmas. I wouldn't see that street again for a year. I wasn't going to be talking to my parents every day. I will no longer be singing in the church choir, participating in church events or swimming three times a week at my local pool. I left it all behind, mentally and emotionally as well as physically and though I have physically returned my mind and my emotions have taken these five weeks and more to even partially return to the space inhabited by my body.
Getting into the school semester two and a half weeks late was a little difficult. I had some catching up to do. Getting a new job and adjusting to it was more annoying than difficult but it took up time and energy. Going back to church was easy - I was overjoyed to be there, but I have noticed something odd: I am not entirely there. I have to concentrate, make my place again, re-connect, learn again how to be a part of this community, because I left.
Who would have thought that little things like making a Christmas list, dealing with an annoying but loved friend, going to the grocery store, participating in church events, even attending a birthday party could be so difficult. But they are. For one simple reason. I wasn't going to do them. I made none of the normal mental and emotional preparations for the continuation of normal, everyday life. I am rebuilding it all from square one. That is the one element of the shock - and the largest - that has taken me most totally by surprise.