Two Homes, One Heart

When I was growing up we used to drive up to Provo, Utah for an entire week every summer so that my Mom and Dad could attend the seminary symposium. We hung out on campus, made faces at the college students, and played in the courtyards and in the hallways of the buildings. To this day the tiny dinosaur museum on University Parkway, next to the football stadium, with the decrepit green dinosaur out front (which I think they might have gotten rid of) holds a special place in my heart. It was our favorite place to visit. Dad would buy us tiny dino miniatures, or dinosaur puzzles.

When I turned twelve and went into young women's, the Girls Camp was perpetually scheduled for that same week, and even though I had a lot of fun going to camp I missed the more than eight-hundred-mile-drive up to the Wasatch Front. It was only natural that I apply to BYU when I was ready to go to college, and it ended up being the only application I sent in. I lived and worked and went to school and met new friends and learned how to live on my own for three years in Provo. Then I left for my mission, disappearing for a year and a half. As I got off the tiny plane that took me the 30 minute ride from LA to San Diego, I remember feeling the moisture in the air, seeing the boats in the harbor nearby, and knowing that I was home. A few weeks later a strange thing happened. I boarded a plane to Salt Lake City, Utah, planning to revisit my college campus and my sisters who were living nearby. As the pilot spoke into the intercom, telling us that we would be landing in just a few minutes, I looked out the window I was sitting by and felt a lump in my throat. It felt so strange, to have that same feeling of coming home when I knew that I had just left it. I didn't realize how much I'd missed living in Provo while I was on my mission until that moment.

After a few months of working in San Diego, I returned to school at BYU. It was almost a repeat of the first three years of my college life--amazing friends, difficult classes, the same mountains looming to the east of me, protecting me from harm. Some things were a little different. Decisions about my education and my future life had to be made, and I managed them the best that I could. By the end of two years, I was tired. I had spent almost an entire 7 years away from my family in San Diego, and I needed a break. I left my home to go home.

Then last week I went up to Provo for a visit and a writing conference. Now, in the past two years I have traveled up to Utah several times, but I've always managed to only stay for two, possibly three days. Not long enough for me to reattach myself to my mountains, my friends, or my campus. So maybe I made a mistake in staying the six days that I was up there last week, because my home away from home began to feel like home again. If I moved back up there, things would be different. So I guess you can't always have what you want when you want it where you want it, because if I could I would narrow the distance between San Diego and Provo.