6/20/13


my husband the pitcher man. my stylish father.

There was a sunset last night.  There was a sunset as we loaded the last of our boxes into cars.  I don't mean that in the way that there are sunsets every night.  I mean there was a sunset last night, that burned pink and orange and dark blue, getting brighter by the minute.

I need a picture of that.  After this box, I'm getting a picture of that sunset.

I never took a picture.  And I'm still thinking about how I regret not taking a picture of that gorgeous sunset that bid us farewell on the last day in our first apartment of our whole entire life together.   As I drove away, I saw it drop behind the horizon.  It sunk down past the cut-out-cardboard silhouette of the mountains, where you can never get anything back once it's gone.

These are the things I do to myself, in my brain.  It's torture.  Because obviously that wasn't the last sunset I'll ever see, and it isn't as if we're moving out of the country or anything.  We live ten minutes away if you take the freeway, and will most likely end up back in American Fork by Fall.  But moving has always been significant for me.

You take down all of your carefully-placed pictures, all of the magnets that held little notes to the fridge.  You take down that card someone wrote you or that potted plant your mom gave you which almost died that one time you went on vacation and forgot about it.  You take it all down, you pack it all up.  You literally move on.

It's the ending of one chapter, the beginning of another.  And it makes me so nostalgic and sentimental I practically drown in the feeling of it all.  Such ridiculous emotional indulgence.  Who knows how I function on a regular basis.
I enter the freeway, end the phone call with Drew about what food he should pick up on the way because we're both just starving.  I'm singing to Radiohead, I think, because the local high school station is on a kick lately, which is fine with me.  One song ends, another begins.  The cat and I are meowing back and forth because she hates car rides and being in her traveling cage and she tries to bite her way out.  I laugh, but admire her determination.

And the kids at that radio station must have been pretty in-tune with the universe last night, because then they played "Home."

Home.  Let me come home.
Home is wherever I'm with you.
Oh, home.  Yes, I am home.
Home is where I'm alone with you.

And, for some reason, that about made up for the whole sunset thing.

11 comments:

  1. Ohh this brings back memories, because earlier this year I went through a move as well and I had one of these moments. It was a few days before moving day and I was overwhelmed with emotions and feeling 1,000 things at once, when Phil Phillips' "Home" came on the radio. how funny is that?

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    1. I'd say that's very funny! haha go figure. We're obviously connected.

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  2. 1. this makes me excited and terrified to eventually move on to the next place we will be. it's such a big and cathartic thing, MOVING, moving everything, that ends up making so much and so little of a difference in the big picture.
    2. i did take a picture of that sunset, because we were in our front yard eating dinner, and YES, it needed to be remembered. i'll try to remember to post it at some point for you.
    3. you. are great.

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    1. It's ridiculous, moving. Stay as long as you can! And don't fall in love with a cat before you're sure you can own one where you live.

      You're even more great.

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    2. ah, but i've already fallen in love with every cat and dog! and yeah, our landlords are heartless as well and don't believe in animal cuddles. so we're off the first chance we get.
      i actually used to love moving, and i do love change, but i'm afraid with a year and a half of marriage's accumulated belongings, it might not be as fun as when i would just throw everything i owned in a car. we'll see.
      i'm proud of y'all for sticking with your cat friend. love is what it's all about.

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  3. I love the way you wrote this post like a story :) The way I see it, the sunset was even more special because you didn't get a photo of it. It was yours for that one instance, kind of like a parting gift, and then it was gone. Kind of beautiful :)

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    1. Huh. you know, I didn't even think of it that way! Thank you for that perspective.

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  4. Sunsets are amazing and that song is wonderful.

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  5. i am seriously in loooove with your blog and i am so glad i found it! how i found it? i don't even remember, but i'm glad i did. you know what's cool about not taking a picture of that sunset though, is that it means so much more to your mind and soul. that happened to me once during a rain storm, i wanted so badly to document it but instead i lived in it and to this day it is still the most vivid and wonderful rain storm i have experienced.

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    1. That is so true. Sometimes I feel like technology takes away from special moments these days. Everyone is trying to get their "shot" instead of enjoying the beauty. Very very true.

      I'm in love with your blog! So we're even! And I don't remember how I found yours either haha.

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