There was a country song that played on the radio when I was in high school. I never knew the artist, but I remember the chorus:
"The only thing that stays the same is
everything changes, everything changes.
Time marches on."
I am notoriously bad at change. I don't like it, even if it's something very small. My kids had to switch schools this year due to a boundary re-alignment in the school district. You'd have thought my world was ending with how I handled it. My kids...they were fine. They already knew kids at the new school. In fact, the boundary change was really for our benefit. Since we moved here, the kids have gone to a different school than the majority of kids in the ward because of the wonky school boundary. The change made sense, but I didn't like it. We had been at that school for five years and it was a great school. Nevermind that the other school was just as good. I could only see the negatives. The other school didn't have band. Nevermind that I could just take my kids to the band at the old school. Now that I am facing an even bigger change, an out-of-state move, only five months into the school year, I am realizing how stupid that all was. I am really thick-headed sometimes.
Tonight I was driving home from a Thanksgiving dinner celebrated with my brother's family and his wife's family. As I arrived at my house, the movie was still playing in the car DVD player and there was only a few minutes left, so I drove around the block to get to the end of the movie. As I did so, I looked around at the neighborhood that I have grown to love.
I realized that the majority of people who lived in this neighborhood when we first moved here no longer live in the neighborhood. They moved on. Most of them didn't move out of state, I'll grant you that, but they moved on despite the good school and the good ward and the good friends. So why am I having such a hard time with it?
I have wanted to move back to Texas ever since I moved away from Texas in 1994. Twenty years ago. For twenty years I have been daydreaming about how great it would be to live in Texas. But I've come to realize that all I ever had was a dream. I didn't realize that in the time I'd left Texas, I had become a Utah girl at heart. I had a hard time moving back to Utah, on the outside. I put up a fight. But on the inside, I think I was secretly glad to be back in Utah. It's comfortable here. The people are nice. I really, really love how easy it is to access the LDS Church here in Utah. I love the access to temples, the access to Salt Lake City, the access to BYU (Women's Conference, Aspen Grove Marriage Retreat, etc.). I love how on Sundays, FM100 plays "Soft Sunday Sounds"--religious music, most of it made by Mormon songwriters and singers. Driving along I-15 from Provo to Riverton at night, I pass four temples that I can see clearly from the freeway (Mt. Timpanogos, Draper, Jordan River, Oquirrh Mountain). And the mountains! Oh how I will miss these mountains! I have lived in the mountainous west longer than I ever lived in Texas. What was I thinking?
I know that Texas is a good place to live and there are great people there too, but I am broken-hearted about leaving this place that I have grown to really love. And somewhat annoyed at myself for not having realized how I love it until it was too late and we were set to leave.
Utah, you've been a good friend. I will no longer be ashamed to say I have lived here. I used to think it was better to tell people I was from Texas than Utah, but I no longer feel that way. I will now tell people I am from Utah. After all, I was born here.
Change, how I loathe you. But I realize that things can't stay the same forever, as much as I wish they would. Change is inevitable. It's a fact of life.
