For anyone whose been anywhere.

Anyone whose been anywhere for any length of time may experience any or all of what I am about to tell you about. You leave, you come back, and a good portion of you feels like whatever is in between those two statements never happened. Home is just so homey, the familar just so familiar. It's like whatever you do to shake things up in life, the snow in the snowglobe still settles on those fixed miniature snowmen, christmas trees, and little cabins all the same. The first few weeks back are always a bit of a feeling out, "OK, what things actually changed?" It's as if my life is an etch-a-sketch, as if even on the plane ride home the airplane's turbulence is starting to erase the lines that I didn't go back over enough times during my experience.

I've been home a total of 10 days now, and the snow is starting to settle and the etch-a-sketch is starting to get frustrated that despite the shaking, there's still some lines that won't erase. There's a few things that I believe have changed.

I've been able to separate my depression from my spirituality and self-worth. I wrote a bit about this near the end of my trip, but this is a big change to being able to function well. It is a beautiful thing to wake up feeling terribly depressed, and yet being able to realize that God is still at work in this day, that I am still awesome, and that I can still be a blessing to those around me. It's as if I have been able to corner whatever virus lurks in my mind and let it know that it can only affect me in the places it exists, it can't spread into places it really doesn't belong.

I've also been able to appreciate each day. Every day on my trip I would write a journal entry. Where I was, who I met, what I ate, what I learned, what great puns I thought up but didn't have anyone to tell. I find it creates in me a sense of appreciation for each day. The Psalm I am reading this week says, "All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." Not that I think that every day needs to be some hyper spiritual event filled with life-altering conversations and activities, but more so that each day was meant to happen. Each day is a essential part of my life, not to be skipped through or thought of as inconsequential. It makes me a bit more thankful. It makes me a bit more prayerful. It makes me a bit more purposeful.

The last thing is that I have a healthy sense of hope. "As for me, I will always have hope, I will praise your name more and more. My lips will speak of your righteousness, my tongue will tell of your salvation, though I know not its bounds... though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again... You will increase my honor and comfort me once again." (Psalm 71) Going on a bike trip across Canada I think helped me get excited about exploring life again. I can do exciting things. I can do different things. I can change and become a different person. I'm not done growing, appreciating beauty, seeing new things. And in all those things, I have the grace to make mistakes and ask forgiveness. That learning things is OK, and trying things I am not good at is necessary to finding things you love.

Some people don't need to leave to find thankfulness, gratefulness, and purpose in life. I think I need to leave more often than I do in order to get my self-awareness back in check. I encourage you, if you need a break, take it. Work, school, and people will always wait. You can stand to miss weddings, you can catch up with people when you get back, money will always be there to be earned. But life can easily rush past instead of being lived.

Halifax to home

This morning I wrestled my sister's and mine bikes into boxes for shipping. It was a bit of a process getting the boxes, of which I'll spare you the gory details, and packing them up was no easier. I used up an entire roll of packing tape getting all 129lbs of bicycles and gear into these cardboard vessels for shipping to Prince George. After 5787km of worrying about my means of transportation and subsistence, my immediate belongings are reduced to a new MEC backpack with some clothes, toothbrush, and a cooking pot I forgot to pack.

As you may be able to tell by my gradually decreasing posts and pictures, my trip documentation is growing more sparse. Not that the trip is any less enjoyable, but my capacity to care about social media is starting to wear thin. So, some of this blog may be lacking details...

PEI: beautiful, red earth, great potatoes, I learned that Anne of Green Gables isnt a real person, Cavendish is a ghost town when its not a tourist town.
One story I will elaborate on was one morning Shannon and I woke up in a gravel pit. We just started biking away when a fierce looking dog with an even more fierce bark started running towards us. Unforunately for this fierce dog, he was also wearing a cone on his head that was a fierce shade of neon green that stuck out past his snout. He bobbed along beside us for a short time clearly trying to make up for his temporary impotence by louder barks, which we shortly drowned out with out laughter.

It was great to be able to see and hang out with Shannon. She always has a way of drawing out good conversation. Probably because she is just genuinely interested in people, and especially so if you are lucky enough to be a relative that she loves more than she ought to. It was good to be able to process with someone a bit of what I've learned and experienced and to catch up on her life as well. It encourages me to see how God has moved in her life to bring her into a job she seems made for and a relationship that seems, while unconventional, perfect for both of them. It gives me hope to see how she has been dragged through the mud in alot of instances in her life but it has brought her through to somewhere she couldn't have dreamed up for herself.

One of the more important instrospections I think I had during the week was realizing that I moralize things that ought not to be moralized. Having perfectionist tendencies in most areas of life, failure becomes a wrong as opposed to a learning experience. The bridge in one of my songs goes: I'm sorry when I think my hands are just as big as yours, I'm truly sorry that I can't be everything to everybody all of the time.
Relationships, friendships, generosity, work, community, faith.
These are all areas that I have failed at during the course of my life and have put on them a weight of morality instead of an appropriate grace-covered learning experience. It's not that I am bad these things, just stupid. That may not sound better... but it is! I can handle being stupid! But if my mind puts me in a state of being perpetually morally wrong, that is pretty fertile soil for my mind to make a mess of me.

And now I am in Halifax. It is lovely to be able to spend time with my good friend Graham. We went to the much recommended "Lower Deck" pub. I was very surprised at how busy it was! There was a bouncer, and we had to pay a cover and were sent to the top of this monster 4 story pub. Wall to wall people. "This is crazy I thought! Is it like this all the time?" Apparently we chose the night of Alexander Keith's birthday party to show up at this joint! So we joined the throng outside to watch "Signal Hill" play a bunch of covers and watch freshly imbibed participants try and dance.
We also went on a beautiful hike on a stormy day along the coast. It was a trail only locals would really know, we had to scoot up someones driveway for a time and it ended at an old cement bunker looking out.
I just got back from a thoroughly enjoyable coffee with another friend Keaton Gairns.

My flight leaves at 6:40am tomorrow morning. I will steal back 4 hrs as I cross time zones and be in vancouver half past noon. Crazy to be heading back home. The sensation of flying over in 8 hours what took me 10 weeks to bike across will be surreal. I am sure I will need one or two more blog posts to reflect on what I have discovered and learned. I go back to work the Tuesday after thanksgiving on a week long trip to Tsay Keh Dene for diabetes work. Look forward to seeing many of you soon.