Home Away from Home at Last

I am finally back in BYU! It feels like a dream almost like I'd never left. Yet while nothing seems to have changed, or at least it looks the same, I feel as though the life I knew only four months ago is gone forever. All shall continue though, for while I grasp at a feeling of displacement and suffer from a strange daze, I continue to find small tokens or happenings of the life I knew before. The most defined would most certainly fall to Spencer. To talk, to laugh, to cook, and love. None of that has changed, though the depth and maturity have perhaps grown due to the four months of letter writing that has now come to a close. Next I find that campus is almost entirely the same. This time is more comforting of course, as I'm not now walking with wide eyes and a bewildered mind wondering how I shall ever learn the vast campus I now know. To make my return even better was the opportunity to run into old friends. In the bookstore I came across Carl. He was a distance runner under my father (the coach of the distance team) and I got to know him through Anatomy and Physiology my Senior Year of High School. It's amazing how time passes. And while I was sitting on a bench by the HFAC (Harris Fine Arts Center) Alex, a fellow folk dancer, bounded up all aglow just like he always is. Then I hear the bells toll as I take a familiar walk to the Moore House. Tomorrow morning Paige arrives. This means I won't have to sleep in an empty apartment for a third night. Tomorrow night is the kick-off to our Folk Dance Auditions, which means that perhaps my nerves will finally die away. This Friday Annica arrives and Ruby will soon follow. Classes begin soon and my daze seems to have returned.

One can only hope that the daze will wear off but after clinging to the past I find it almost awkward to transition to the future. Much like trying to fold one's arms a certain way, opposite of what is most natural or comfortable, or like trying to write left handed for a right-handed person. Yes, I think I am most grateful we are given a present for I think I shall focus on that. 

For now, I find myself lying on the Moores's couch, typing the thoughts that come to me as my computer is quickly depleted of its power. I have forgotten my power cord, and with a 30-minute walk back to my place I think I had better just do without it. Especially when taking into account the fact that my leather boots have rubbed a little spot on each ankle to a rawness that I'm currently attempting to ignore. Spencer taught me to pick a lock today and I have acquired all my books. Merritt will be here in the next hour or two, and I wonder what I'll have for dinner . . . Perhaps more of Spencer's pasta. Either way, it's good to be back, in this home away from home which seems to have supplanted my first home in a way I didn't think possible. Here it's always changing, in Twin Falls with my family life seems to stand still. Here I'm always progressing, in Twin Falls the monotony lends to near madness. Here I have a place, a purpose, and a passion. To Twin Falls I may always return to the ones I love, but the other is non-existent. So yes, even with the dazed feeling I still feel that it is good to be home at last.

-Natalie Cherie