Stories.

As of today, I have been home for seven months and sixteen days. 

The year and a half I spent overseas was just the beginning of a much bigger picture God has begun to paint with my life. 

But embedded within it are the stories, and the lives of others. 

I carry them with me, like precious stones hanging from my neck. 

Holding onto the beauty of them, but suffocating under the weight.

I always said I would be a storyteller. 

It was a childhood dream of mine. 

Going on the race and finally being able to launch myself into a bigger dream of mine

allowed me to realize that I had neglected my dream of storytelling. 

I met hundreds of different people from a hundred different cultures. 

I cried a thousand tears for them. 

I laughed with them. 

I loved them. 

For the past seven months, I've held onto these precious memories.

Begging my mind to not forget the smells, the emotions, the life. 

But time seems to steal the rawness, the reality of it all, 

 despite my desperate attempts to keep the sand from slipping from my fingers. 

I always said I would be a storyteller.

So it's time now to tell the stories that I didn't know how to tell seven months ago. 

It's time now to let the world hear. 

I don't know how to even go about tackling something like this. 

I want more than anything to do them justice. 

I want to convey their stories in such a way that people really hear, see, smell, feel everything I'm writing. 

I don't feel equipped, or ready, or remotely prepared to jump into this. 

But I will try, if only for them. 

I always said I would be a storyteller...