The Adjustment

Finding the Balance: Not as Easy as You'd Think

Well, I now have about 2 weeks under my belt as a normal civilian. And yes, I'm aware that I'm still not in the habit of posting daily, even often. But the thing is, I don't have a laptop of my own which made it much easier to post before, and I'm not on the computer all that often. Furthermore, I refuse to try to do a post on a tablet or my phone. So until I have my own computer, don't expect the most frequent of posts.

Anyways, yes. I have a couple of weeks home now so I suppose I can say I have at least a taste of the real world. People have asked me several times over the past week or so what it's like to be home now. They want to know if I miss the mission, if it's hard adjusting, if I'm awkward, etc. It's hard to completely put it into words, but simply stated, it's been interesting. I don't think it's been easy, but it hasn't been hard either. It's funny, because I don't want to go back at all. My service time is over and it's time to move forward. However, I don't know how much I like being home either.

Truth be told, I don't really feel like I am home.

I've talked to Mom about this a couple of times. First, before I talk about that, I've gotta give a shout out to Mom for always being willing to drop everything to sit and talk to me about whatever. Anyways, I talked to her about how I was feeling and she summed it up like this: My house in Spanish Fork isn't my home anymore. I haven't really been steadily living here for almost 3 years now, and "home" to me is Provo now. It's just the natural step of life to want to move out and move forward with life...that is, unless you're like this guy:

To each their own I guess.

The past 2 weeks have been sometimes busy, and sometimes downright boring. I guess I'm still somewhat in the missionary mindset in terms of not being able to just sit and do nothing. I've been back on BYU campus quite a bit getting everything ready for school. So far I have an idea of where I want to live, I have 2 jobs ready for me in 2 weeks, and I'm signed up for Spring Term classes. At this point I think I would have gone downright insane if I couldn't start school until the fall. I think living here with nothing to do is already giving me cabin fever.

We're getting dangerously close to this point.

In all honesty, I really am happy to be home. I think it's just the challenge of finding my place in the world. I've basically been removed from everyone and everything I know for the past 2 years and now I'm being asked to just jump right into things like I was never gone. It's like sprinting down a moving sidewalk and then at the end being asked to go right back to walking normal. Possible? Yes. Challenging and a little awkward? Youbetcha. For example, I'm living at home, but I'm technically not under parental control. This is a little awkward for me because I feel obligated to tell them where I'm going and when I'll be back; along with constantly waiting for them to tell me I can't or I need to do something. Yet they're not. They just let me do my thing which would be fine if I weren't living under their roof. So, since I can't get my head around it, they frequently give me weird looks that say "You're an adult, you don't need to come to your parents about that."

It's a good thing though. I've just been doing a lot of things to 1) Keep me out of the house, and 2) Get me out of any "missionary comfort zone" I have. For example, 3 days after getting home, I was invited by a family friend who I had only ever written but never really talked to in person to go to the Hare Krishna Color Festival. I'd only been to this thing once and it was right before I left 2 years ago. I had a sub-par experience, but I felt like it'd be a good thing to do so I went. I'll be honest, it was super hard to act normal and just embrace everything that was going on, but it was fun and I think it helped me a lot.

I've been on a couple of dates and I've been out and about doing different things like Temple Square, Museums, and just being back hanging with the bros. I've also been home with the family a lot watching movies and just spending time with them. I'm still in the process of figuring out how to integrate mission habits I want to keep going without being a goober of an RM. As long as I can avoid this, I think I'll be okay:

AMS