A Toast to Utah: Farewell, Old Friend

Ten hours, three boxes of Altoids, two Mountain Dews and forty-seven Peachios later, I've arrived in California, leaving behind Utah indefinitely to begin full-time work.  The fact that I won't be going back hasn't sunk in yet, and it might not for a while.  It's sad to leave behind the place I've lived in for 20 of my 26 years of life, but it's also exciting to begin my career and to begin real life (I still call it real life even though I'm living at my parents' house).

When people asked me what I'd miss most about Utah besides friends and family, I couldn't really think of much.  In fact, the only answer I came up with was basketball.  You can always count on finding good ball in Provo.  This led me to the thought that Utah, like anywhere I might live, is only as good as the people I find there.  I won't miss Utah for its mountains, because I'll have the beach.  I won't miss Utah for its weather, because I hate the snow.  I won't miss Utah for its attractions, because I have the feeling that California offers a lot more.  I'll miss Utah because of all the people I care for who I am leaving behind. Unfortunately, you can't always take those you love with you wherever you go.

So although it's depressing to say goodbye, I feel like I made the most of this last summer with those people.  I went to Kanarraville, Utah to see a solar eclipse.  I went camping, went to a rodeo and to multiple carnivals.  I beat down two pinatas and I painted for the first time since Elementary school.  I started this blog, went wedding crashing and won the Bachelorette TV series  competition.  I went on trips to Boise, California, and Seattle.  I passed my CPA tests and I loved more than I ever had before.  It was a great summer.

Last Monday was my final night in Utah, and it was an emotional one.  I hadn't expected the goodbye to hurt so much and be so hard.  Yet there I was, crying like a little girl in the arms of someone I love. Besides the pain associated with leaving, I had some other thoughts during that night.  One thought had to do, of course, with vulnerability (what would one of my blog posts be without mentioning vulnerability?).  Leaving was so difficult because of how deeply I cared about the people I was leaving behind.  This summer I opened myself up and made myself more emotionally available than any other time in my life.  Because of that I felt like I was able to feel happiness greater than ever before, yet on the other hand, it made it hurt that much more when I had to say goodbye.  Brene Brown teaches that the risk of letting "ourselves become vulnerably seen", as she puts it, is that while we open ourselves up to experience real feelings of joy, we are also in danger of feeling real pain.  I experienced that, and it did hurt.  Yet in the process I realized that feeling is in no way a negative experience.  It only meant that I was alive.  It meant that I could feel.  It meant that I was capable of loving and being loved in return.  It meant that I had lived and given all of myself, and although it hurt in the end, I was better for it.  That's what being human is all about!  We're here on earth to build relationships and have real, deep connections with people, connections that only come about when we really invest all of ourselves.  That's one of the most, if not the most, important parts of the human experience, yet we're all so scared to do it because we're scared of "getting hurt", and because of that fear we hold back. We only invest a part of ourselves.  We risk no more than what is comfortable.  In the end, we might not feel as much pain.  But living that way will never bring us real happiness. The only path to true joy is the one marked by the risk of hurt.

If there was one who walked that kind of path and who epitomized vulnerability, it was Christ.  He literally gave all of Himself on our behalf without any guarantee of reciprocation. In fact, He even knew that many people for whom He would suffer would reject Him.  Yet He went through with it anyway.  He didn't stop to count the cost or ask who would love Him in return. Christ's Atonement was the most vulnerable act in all of human history.  I believe that one of the reasons Christ is able to love so purely and feel so deeply for us is precisely because of that vulnerability.  Investing so much of Himself in us exposes Him to great pain, like the kind we read about in Moses 7, where the Lord "looked upon the residue of the people, and He wept" because of their wickedness.  Yet, at the same time, that vulnerability also allows Him to feel great, indescribable joy - the kind which we read about in 3 Nephi 17, where, due to the faith of the people, the Savior weeps because his "joy [was] full."  If we are to be Christlike, we must learn to become as vulnerable as He did.  We must learn to give ourselves to others, to love like crazy without guarantees, and even to cry when we are let down.  We shouldn't run from those feelings and try to avoid them, for they are the very emotions to which we should aspire, and that are most reminiscent of Christ.

So as I say farewell to Utah, I do so with mixed feelings.  I am sad to leave behind people I care about, yet I am thankful that I feel for them so much I cry.  I feel grateful for the chances I've had to learn to love, and to receive love.  I'm thankful I was able to experience humanity.  I'm appreciative to all of the people who made Utah what it was to me.  It's really to them, and not to Utah, that I say goodbye.  So instead of "So long, Utah", what I'm really saying is, "Take luck Jim."  "God speed Bones."  "See you later Brian."  "Bye Em.  I miss you."  And it's those kinds of people to whom I'll raise my glass in farewell.