One of our interns recently ended her stint at Invisible Children and returned home to resume her life. She has a blog and wrote a post entitled “Invisible Children Ruined My Life” which reflects on her time with us and what she learned about herself. I laughed so hard, I cried. And if I cry, I want you to cry too. Enjoy.

Rebekah

Many of you know I have been interning with the nonprofit Invisible Children since late August. Well, my time there has officially come to an end, and I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand I feel extremely accomplished and ready to return to my “normal life.” On the other hand my “normal life” doesn’t exist anymore, at least not in the form it used to…My life is completely ruined and, Invisible Children, I blame you. Allow me to elaborate. Listed below are five adult reasons as to why I believe this is so.

1.) I am now a hugger. That’s right. Rebekah “I don’t like to be touched” Call is now a full-fledged hugger. This was unheard of before my conversion into an Invisible Children employee. Ask my parents, my sisters, my friends..I was not a hugger (at least not when given a choice). Now I am a hugging machine. My first instinct upon seeing someone I care about is to tackle them in what could be misconstrued to the untrained eye as a highly inappropriate, border-line molestation bear hug. You should see their faces when receiving such a greeting. It is nothing short of stunned.

2.) I want to talk about my feelings all the time. What?! Who does that? This girl. Thanks to my extensive relational training, every time something in my life goes awry I instinctively start analyzing my actions, questioning my motives, and tracing everything back to my “family origin.” I was never this logical and level-headed. I ran on strict, over-the-top, cross me if you dare, hard, raw emotion. IC has turned me into a logical, “let’s talk about it” type. My, how the mighty have fallen. On a not-so-unrelated note, I now cry at the drop of a hat. Seriously, it occurs at random. I guess this was what everyone was babbling on about in our environmental transition training, huh? It’s like I have PTSD. It happens at the most ridiculous times.

“Hey, Bekah, do you want a sandwich?”
YOU JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND ME! ‘bursts into tears and runs from the room’

Err..Okay? I didn’t used to be this sensitive, this in touch with my feelings. Being a part of the Invisible Children family for 4 months apparently makes you a basket case. Can you say emotional time bomb?

3.) I tear up every time I hear “Ho, Hey” by the Lumineers, “As Long As You Love Me” by Justin Beiber and that song by FUN whose title escapes me at the moment. All of these songs trigger some form of precious memory created alongside my Invisible Children cohorts. Whether it be the Regional Managers singing and dancing in a flashmob-esqe farewell attempt, my roommates and I “skanking” in the 15-passenger van on the way to work or dancing in a crowd of over 100 sweating, laughing roadies and interns at launch dinner I am instantly taken back to these moments within the first few notes. I told you I have become an emotional time bomb ready to blow at any given moment. Play one of these songs (or anything by MONSTA), and you’ll see exactly what I am talking about. “Ho, Hey” just started playing on my iPod. Not kidding. Why must you torture me?

4.) People keep asking me what I did while in San Diego, what my job entailed, etc. I literally freeze. I clam up completely. How do you put such a life changing, intense and otherwise abnormal experience into words? How could this person ever truly understand what I, along with my teammates, went through? I used to be such a witty conversationalist, a chatterbox if you will. My sister bought me a shirt that had the words “Motor Mouth” written on it, I mean come on! I am known as a talker. People expect me to speak, especially when asked a direct question! If my brain unexpectedly makes a connection and words do proceed to make their way out of my mouth, the answer is always lacking. “Oh we planned an event in DC.” or “I spent a lot of time at the office.” What the hell? That is NOT all we did. We planned the biggest event in Invisible Children history! We got global leaders from the places like the European Union and the International Criminal Court to attend said event in Washington, DC! I personally called hundreds of people to MOVE them to DC! I helped book flights, make hotel reservations and organize carpools from three different regions throughout the US. But how do you tell someone who wasn’t there, wasn’t a part of it, all of that without eliciting bored expressions accompanied by glazed looks? This may go back to the PTSD.

5.) I am way too plugged in. If I were being honest, before this internship I wasn’t this Facebook active, and I never checked my email quite this obsessively. Now any time my phone rings I have to check it right then, and that’s if my phone isn’t already in my hand. I check the Roadie and Intern Facebook group at least 3 times a day. I wait for updates from my roommates, I creep their profiles incessantly (sorry, guys) if I don’t hear from them. I have a problem. Inside the walls of the Invisible Children office, we are the first to receive news, good and bad. We tell each other everything right when it happens. We are all scattered now from San Diego to Mexico to St. Louis to as far as London. The time difference alone is enough to drive anyone crazy. I now feel disconnected and almost left out. We’ve got to start planning some IC class reunions before I lose my mind.

So there you have it. Five solid, logical ways Invisible Children clearly ruined my life. I was perfectly content in my little world with my few friends and my rational thought, ease of conversation, and my non-hugging ways.

And to any of my IC loves that may have the misfortune of reading this post…I belong with you, you belong with me.

xoxo