It's been a while since I did any personal writing. I guess a lot happened in the meantime. There was a sprint at the end of last summer where I got married to the love of my life, roamed through France on our honeymoon, got home, packed up our stuff, moved across the country, and started a new job in Boston—all within a month. That sprint was followed by the marathon of my new gig. Long days in a hectic office were coupled with packed-to-the-gills subway rides, the loneliness of an unfamiliar town, and discovering the true depth of a New England winter. Of course, it didn't help that every time I looked at social media, I could count on seeing my friends reveling in one of the most memorable winters Utah had seen in some time.
And then, sometime around mid-February, it hit us: we don't have to be unhappy with where we're at. Now, let me take a second to say that there is nothing wrong with choosing to live in New England, or anywhere else for that matter. There were plenty of things we enjoyed about our time there (the beer certainly comes to mind for this guy), and I met and worked with a lot of great people. But for us, the pull of the mountains was just too strong. And the desert. And the big skies. And the empty spaces. And the like-minded lovers of wild places who are so abundant out west. And so we began scheming, and set our sights on heading back to Utah at the end of March.
After making our preparations and caravanning across two-thirds of the country, we finally arrived in Salt Lake to find that...well, not much had changed. In a good way. I guess that's to say it felt like we were home. As a kid who lived all over the place—and never anywhere for too long—I had never really had that feeling of "being home" that so many other people claimed to know. Until Utah. Turns out, I just had to leave first before I could truly understand that this is what having a home feels like.
Oh, and the skiing. It's still good. Like, really, really goddamn good.
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