Memories in the Footsteps

We're in Utah right now, soaking up the sun while we splash in pools, splash pads and wade pools.

As we entered Utah and got closer and closer to Farmington my heart beat added upon itself.  Like it does when you've got a boy coming to pick you up for a date.  Weird?  I searched the left side of the free-way for Lagoon and was not disappointed as I saw the lighted ferris wheel and on the opposite side of the free-way, hiding behind the trees and upcoming apartment buildings I knew Station Park was growing.  Its stores multiplying and perhaps rivaling those in the mall.  And all within walking distance of where we spent our first married years.

We passed by, not taking the time to turn off the free-way and drive down main, and passed under the walking bridge that I had taken Alaska so many times.  Often times screaming at the top of her lungs because we had been out too long on the bike trail, not turning around before she was tired of sitting still.  I thought of my footsteps.  The steps I had taken to escape the dullness of being indoors.  The steps I had taken to be out in the sunshine.  The steps I had taken with a friend, pushing our strollers side-by-side.  The steps Handsome Husband and I had taken to the fair.  And lastly, the steps I had taken to get out of the rain when it snuck up on Alaska and I.  So many steps.  My steps.  My memories left behind, a step at a time.

For one split second I felt like I could see all the steps, mine and others, an accumulation of colors and shades of color, reflecting how that person was feeling as they stepped.  Footprints left behind like leaves, only there were no trees.  And then they were gone, swept up in the business of the cars racing below.

Thinking back to how much time we had spent in Farmington and how much we had loved it I was sorry that we had been in such a hurry to move on.  We had our sights on two years and kept it there, not wanting to accept any more.  Those two years we learned and loved and grew, looking back it's hard to think that so much could happen in two years.  But we were still in a hurry to move on in life.  I made sure to love every minute of it, as you ought, but there had always been a little tickling, a little dance in my heart, that didn't want to settle.  It won't happen again.

We're settling in to St. Helens, though we won't be here forever.  We've got our sights on three years but we keep that wrapped up tight in our own hearts.  I am concentrating on making ties, sinking my roots in good and deep and will worry about the hurt that comes with ripping them up, later.  Because, I have found, it hurts no matter what.  May as well make that hurt worth it.  I'm leaving my steps all over this town, spending time meandering between parks, becoming a regular at the thrift-stores and loving hard the people in our ward and our apartment complex.

I am learning names as fast and I can, and practice them when we get to church early.  Saying first and last names in  my mind and if there is someone I don't know, I vow to find them after sacrament and introduce myself.  It doesn't matter that we've been here two months or a year.  I want to be able to look out into the congregation and see friends, not faces.

Handsome Husband and I haven't been given a calling yet.  It's strikingly eery and refreshing at the same time.  Eery to not have a responsibility and be frantically gathering supplies together for a Sunday lesson or Tuesday activity.  To not have a niche that includes children of some age or another.  It has given me extra time to learn names in Relief Society and develop a few friendships, though I know for all the names I have learned there, there are at least that many more in primary that I may never meet unless I get called there.

It's interesting, how the church works, and how I am sure every church works.  Religion is something we can relate to, and if we have nothing else in common, we have that.  It can create numerous, instant friends, and a unification that we can present to the world as our offer of, "yes, I belong.  Look how many people I know." I am eating it up, drinking it in deep and leaving my footprints all over it.