Lost In Their Own Journeys

How about this. I’m on a journey around the world. I have all my tickets purchased and my agendas. Sometime into my journey the travel becomes rocky … then, suddenly, everything is ripped from me … my tickets, my agendas, everything … including my identity. I’m alone in a foreign land with nothing but the clothes on my back. Oh, and two young children in tow who have also been stripped of everything, including their identities, except for the clothes on their backs. I am forced to figure out who I am, where I am, how to care for my children and myself, how to help them figure out who and where they are, etc.

Yet during this time, everyone else we were travelling with has moved on in the journey. There are points along the way we still see each other, such as educational and religious meetings. But it’s odd … because all these people have all these experiences we don’t have. They are refreshed, full of life and energy … and hope … and continued goals … moving forward.

Occasionally these people ask about us, but for the most part, they’re all lost in their own journeys. Meanwhile, we’re still struggling … trying to recreate our identities … to discover who and what we are … to reconfigure our futures, our journeys.

These years … where the rest of the world has moved forward … and we’ve been trying to heal and reconstruct our lives … these are The Lost Years.

It’s getting easier to see these differences, smile, and move on. But other times it’s all I can do not to cry.

[via The Order of Recon]