thoughts on going

I was not prepared for the emotional tummult of Sunday.

But, in thinking, I wonder - how does one prepare emotionally for something emotional? Like telling friends and family in and near New York that we are leaving?

When, during the baring of his tender testimony, my man confessed that we would be leaving in a few weeks, I felt the ache of the finality of the loss of this place. Once news like this becomes public, it becomes undeniably real. No longer a comfortable 'if', but a severe 'when'.

I became desperate for the people who approached me (with shock, with dismay, with a sympathetic enthusiasm) to understand my ambivalent mind. I spent most of the rest of the 3 hour block trying to describe either my eagerness for the next phase of our lives, or the anguish of the end of this one. It's a difficulty...I am so excited to be going, I'm so desperately sad to be leaving. They feel like such separate and important things...

A new place, a new situation - a husband who is NO LONGER A STUDENT! This will be so different from anything we've done yet - a new and great adventure! But how can I ever bare to leave this place? It feels too heavy a thing. How can I leave these incredible people?!

Oh. The people.

I tend to assume that people I care for mean a great deal more to me than I do to them - I mean, we've been here only six months! (How in the world has it only been six months?! It feels to me like years. Truly. Years.) So when a few of of my dear friends, still in the tender stages of our friendship, confessed to me that they cried actual tears, I felt very loved indeed.

And also like I was betraying the tender shoots of our friendship.

New York! I was just getting started!

But, as Bill so aptly put it, it doesn't feel like we are 'returning' to Utah. We're not going back. We're going to. We are going to Utah and to the next phase of our lives as new people. Completely changed at the very core by this glorious city that builds and destroys and builds a person from the inside out.

And the people that we've grown to love, here - we're taking all of this with us.

(Which is great, because pretty much everything physical that we own, here, will have to stay here.)

(Except my yellow chevron blanket.)

(I'm keeping that.)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can't wait to hear all about it (your NY experience)! And about the amazing people you have met. I hate, hate, hate transitions, so I can certainly understand. I seriously cried every time we drove out of SF for the first month. And we moved 30 minutes away. Seriously.

And I can most certainly understand why people would really cry to have you leave, even after such a short time. Nothing is the same without you guys around. For real.

Ooh - idea! Maybe we should all go together and visit and you can bring Utah and NYC together :)!

~Ari

Aunt Jan said...

Steph, Mom has tried for hours on many days to write and respond to your fabulous letters. She just can't do all that she used to be able to do. I will give her this print out so she will know you are returning to Utah...but where in Utah? Will you be here for Christmas with the family? We are excited if we get to have you here again for a while, at least. Please know we love you dearly even if you haven't heard from us.

Swanky Mommy said...

So when is the welcome home party? :)

Zach and Sara Allen said...

We are so sad to be loosing our NY buddies. I can't tell you how happy it makes me to know you will be moving to a place we visit often and might end up ourselves. I hope our little sprouts of friendship can turn into big strong trees because we think you guys are a family worth knowing for a long old time.