Memory Lane

Let me just tell you, a walk down memory road is lovely, but it is also heartbreaking. And this weekend, really the last half of this week I have taken a HUGE walk down memory lane. I have, for much of the weekend felt an emptiness in the middle of my heart, but I have also felt great joy.

This weekend I took a trip down to Ephraim with my mom. It has been exactly three years since the day I took that trip down there, a trip that would change my life completely. Three years ago I was going down there with a truck full of my belongings and moving into my very own (shared) apartment. When I got down there this weekend we went into Walmart to get some stuff we forgot, I watched as all the new freshman were walking around, it was very clear that they were getting a hang of this living on their own business. I was reminded of the many Walmart trips I made with my roommates and neighbors. I thought back to how we probably acted just as crazy and just as immature as the ones I was watching were.

The hotel where my mom and I stayed is the same one my parents stayed at when I went down for snow blast, which is the reason I chose to go to snow. Yet some more memories.

Now, you should know this, the reasoning for this trip was to help with a wedding. K..moving on.

When we started to set up chairs for the wedding ceremony at the church (which happened to be the same church building I attended church at) I walked I to the room to help and was immediately transported back to a different time. Suddenly I was attending church at that ward for the first time, my roommates and I had walked into Sunday School with our neighbors, only to find there wasn't enough seats for all of us to sit together. My sweet roommates volunteered me to sit with one of our neighbors on the front row, it wasn't so funny then, now I wonder why it was such a big deal.

One of the girls that was helping set up on Friday was actually in my math class so I started thinking of that class and how fun it was.

The Malt Shop definitely brought back memories. The swings. The chairs. The glaciers. Being paid in
the form of glaciers to do my cousins homework.

Kent's Grocery store...I didn't even go inside, I just saw it.  Of course that would bring back memories of the ever so infamous walk to the grocery store with Courtney, that ended with a split bag and a lost yogurt.

Not to mention that as I was making the last stretch of the drive down the highway my iPod decided it would play the music my cousin and I would blast in her jeep on our drives to and from school, AND I was driving the jeep...

I almost didn't want to leave that one stop light town, then I remembered that Ephraim is my past, and I can't continue to live in my past.  So I left happy.  Happy that I am able to still visit that place, and still find solitude.  Happy that I have those memories, and that I have the ability to remember them all.  Finally, I was happy that I am able to realize how much I changed because of that small town, but also to be able to see how much I have changed since then.

Ephraim will always have a part of my heart, and I am okay with that.