A few weeks ago, I got a message from my dear friend Em, who shared with me a "Facebook Memory" from four (!) years ago. It was a collage of pictures of the two of us in Provo Canyon, just enjoying our time in the fresh mountain air, posing by sunflowers, and twirling on paths.
[mountain twirling, circa August 2015]
But there is more to the memory than just enjoying the air and each other's company and friendship on a summer day. Four years ago, Em and I had recently graduated from BYU and were, quite frankly, very unsure about our futures, even though we both were heading to graduate school in the fall. The end of university for both of us had been a kind of flop across the finish line rather than a grand, dramatic exit, and we were exhausted. Even though we were both pursuing our dreams, we didn't know what the future held. I was still healing from a bad breakup, readjusting to being back at home for the summer, and we were both trying to figure out the "meaning" of so many bewildering, wonderful, and heartbreaking experiences we had had during our undergraduate careers.
So, we drove to the mountains.
It was a common thing for us to do when we were feeling confused, tired, or sad in Utah Valley. We'd drive up Provo Canyon and go to a spot just before Deer Creek Reservoir, close to the river and beyond the train tracks. And it's a place where we became more grounded and whole.
[circa September 2015]
So when Em sent me those pictures from four years ago, I remembered all of the times we drove up there to escape the valley dust and smog, to begin again from the mountains.
But I also realized that our mountain spot is literally half a mile down the road from the cabin belonging to Sam's aunt and uncle, another mountain spot that means a great deal to Sam and is beginning to be meaningful to me.
It's beautiful to think that four and five years ago, during times when I was insecure, heartbroken, wistful, and hoping, that I went to a spot half a mile away from a place where a future family of mine would gather to laugh, play, and grieve. Life is full of poetry, even if we can't immediately understand.
II.
Ten years ago (!) I started BYU. When I close my eyes and think about my eighteen-year-old self beginning college . . . it's incredible to me. It feels so far away, and yet, the excitement I felt is still tangible, although it is mingled now with nostalgia and the odd sensation that the girl I was is both very and not-so-different than the girl typing at her laptop right now.
[Although the pictures tell a different story. Here is me 10 years ago . . .]
[versus me about eight months ago.]
I didn't realize then that many of the friendships I made my first year of college would be so long-lasting.
I also didn't realize that I actually--maybe? probably?--met my future husband during those first few weeks of BYU. Neither Sam or I really remember meeting each other during our freshman year at BYU, but Sam says he remembers my last name, and since were were in the same freshman church congregation, it is highly probable that we met at some kind of ice cream social or something. But we ran in different friend groups and it wouldn't be until six years later, when we met again, that Sam would remember my name and that we had been in the same freshman ward.
If you would have told me as a freshman that the man I would marry lived less than a quarter of a mile away from me, I wouldn't have believed it. (And, it might have convinced me to avoid him, out of shyness or stubbornness.) I don't think Sam would have believed he would eventually marry me, either. There was still too much for us to discover about ourselves and the world until we'd be ready to truly meet, for the stars to align, and for our story to begin.
But you still wonder sometimes--what if? What if we had been friends our entire time at BYU? Or simply, what if we had been better friends during freshman year? Would that have facilitated or hindered our courtship? There's no way to know, no way to truly count for all the contingencies the past or the future offers us. We only have what we have done, what we choose today, and gratitude for the grace which infuses past, present, and future.
III.
A week ago, I sat outside on the deck of Sam's aunt and uncle in their mountain cabin--the cabin half a mile away from Em and my "mountain spot" near the Provo River. There was a gathering of relatives there, since the family had just buried Sam's Grandma Tueller, and the family was finding comfort and support by just being together. So I sat in the beauty of an August evening in the Wasatch Mountains, talking, laughing, listening, and watching the bright blue sky fade to lavender, violet, and then ink blue.
I still have a hard time putting into words what the juxtaposition of two summer evenings in Utah in (practically) the same place makes me feel. These two evenings separated from each other not only by four turns around the sun, but by experience, by wisdom, by folly, by possibility, by old and by new. But they are also connected through life, through death, through beauty, through hope, through opportunity, through uncertainty, through heartbreak, through ambiguity. It is less of a lesson learned or a meaning, but more of an awareness--a visceral acknowledgement of light and knowledge surrounding me.
And perhaps, most of all for me, these two mountain havens--one chosen by me and a friend, the other offered to me through new family connections--remind me that healing comes, that the past can be redeemed, and that God is awake.
