As some of you may have noticed, my blog posts have been few and far between lately. It's not that nothing 'post worthy' has happened to me. I've just been in the land of in between.
You know what I mean right?
I'm in one of those moments in my life where I'm halfway here and halfway gone.
Where you don't buy big things or make too many friends because you're not gonna be here much longer, but then you want to be with all the ones you love from this short adventure and make sure you remember everything you loved about being here and doing this. Where you long to just begin the next phase, but hate that you can't stay in the present and enjoy it while it lasts.
How I know I'll never do this ever again and that one day I'm gonna miss this. Where you look back and wonder where the time has gone, but it seems to move at a snail's pace in the moment.
August feels like a year away, but I know I'll take a breath and then find myself sitting in the MTC before I've even had a chance to catch up to myself.
It's weird and uncomfortable. It's like staring at cookies baking in the oven. You want them so much, but you have no choice but to wait. The more you sit there focusing on the cookies, the longer it feels like it takes for them to finally be done. You have to go and do something until they're done or else you go nuts.
Also, I've been missing all of my friends on missions way too much.
Our friend group consisted of about twelve guys and five girls. 11 left on missions about a year ago, and ya try to keep tabs on everyone but it's a challenge. My roommate from my first year of college said, "So now what're you gonna do? I've never seen a closer group of friends, Hay. All the guys are gone, and you're all spread out."..I know. And I don't know.
My dream would be to all stay friends, go to everyone's weddings, hang out as married couples, yada yada. But realistically? The boys will come back, the girls will be married, half will move across the country, but. I'm gonna do my darndest to have at least one 'family reunion' once everyone gets back from missions, internships, and college. Hear that?? If you're in that friend group and you're reading this somewhere in the future, we have to make this happen okay?!
This is the part of me that's stuck in the past. But I believe in making more good times in the future. So, humor me. ;)
As for my family-I love them. They're all so strong and inspiring. I've had the chance to have most of them visit me out here, and I've loved it. It's kind of surreal seeing family in the setting of your new life. I've made it to the point where California is home to me. This is where I live and run. Where I buy groceries and go to church.
I haven't been in Utah since Christmas, and even then it was for a week and a half.
Instead of thinking of Utah as the only place to have a life, it's become what it really is-just another place to live.
Right now, Utah feels like that house you grew up in when you were little. You remember it and it holds close memories for you, but it will be weird to go back and see it again. Live in it again. It will be so familiar and almost funny to compare it to everything you've been doing with yourself in the meantime. Interesting to see how much has stayed the same and how much has changed, when you've been in a totally different place and learned so many things that it's confusing when others expect you to do and want the same things you once did. It's like walking up to your seventeen year old self and having a conversation about 'what's happenin lately'. They're bound to be different.
Ya I've only been gone for about a year, but this feeling is new to me. I've never been in the position to be in a completely different state than my family. Literally and figuratively. It's different than a mission because you have a life out here. You can call up your family whenever you want, you have friends out here, and a job. It's not like I'm stowed away this whole time. I've been living like I would normally, and that's what makes it such a baffling concept to move BACK to the life I had. And then switch directions, change mindset, and take off back east like a bolt of lightning with a purpose and single goal.
Bringing others unto Christ. Telling everyone they're loved and watched over.
I've had the amazing opportunity to truly prepare to share the gospel with others. I share something about the LDS church almost daily. I get the chance to study and work on aspects of myself that I want to prepare for a full-time mission and explain my beliefs to anyone who asks. And I don't feel like I would get this same experience to prepare my testimony and faith in Christ if I was still living in that little house off of Harrison Blvd in Ogden.
I'm not quite sure what the theme for this post is, but this point in my life doesn't really have a theme. haha. So? I'll enjoy the ride!! ;)
"Do you still wait for me, dreamgiver? Just around the riverbend?"-Pocahontas
