2020-08-22 — Goodbyes

Hiya, folks,

My heart is a little melancholic at the moment. I’ve been in Utah for about the last week now, having arrived late last Saturday night.

I find myself tonight saying goodbye to some of my really good friends, Cory, Robyn, and Matt. I don’t want to say goodbye. I suppose I don’t really have to say goodbye right now, but I sort of feel like my time in Utah has run its course for this particular trip.

I’m sad about it, but it just sort of feels like time.

I will say hi and goodbye to some of my family members tomorrow and will say goodbye to one of my best friends tomorrow, although I probably won’t get to see her again before I leave.

So Utah isn’t really my home anymore, and it still doesn’t feel like it, but there’s a part of me that never left. And that part of me will miss it again when I leave. It’s mostly the mountains and good memories.

The dry heat is also quite nice, actually. 100 degrees here feels like nothing to me compared to the humidity in Arkansas. so I will miss the dry heat, and I will miss being able to sit on the grass without getting chiggers, and I will miss my mountains and my waterfalls.

So I love living in the country in Arkansas, and I love the thunderstorms, and I love nature and living critters everywhere, and I love the slower pace of life come at least where I live, but it has never fully become home either.

I don’t know where home is for me.

Perhaps someday I will have a place that feels like home. I mean, where I am in Arkansas is home right now, and it feels like home to a degree, but it doesn’t feel permanent by any means. It feels like a temporary resting place until it’s time to move on. I’ve built my business up. It’s small, but it’s successful. I wouldn’t be surprised if once I have somebody running the business for me that I find my way away from Arkansas to somewhere else. I don’t know where somewhere else would be, though. Part of me I think expects to end up back in Utah one day. I can’t say that I want to. Just so crowded… Nasty air… frantic pace of life it feels like to me, anyway. It could just be me on that though, and life isn’t really like that here. I don’t know.

Yeah, feeling melancholic. Not bad, just a little sad.

Anyway, so it looks like my next step is probably to head to Seattle. I was thinking I was going to leave tomorrow, but then I heard that there’s a really good chance that in the very near future my aunt Leti might be moving down to an assisted living Center in Highland or Cedar Hills area, and I might need to fly up to Seattle rent a moving van and bring my aunt and all of her stuff back here to Utah. so, I guess my plans are a little up in the air. Perhaps some of my goodbyes have been false alarms. We shall see.

I was thinking that I might just do the rounds and visit all of my family because I haven’t seen most of them in more than two years, and some of them in over four, I’ll have to see how everything goes with my aunt and her situation. Need to make sure she gets taken care of.

Anyway… as far as the day is concerned, I did my dailies this morning. I surprised a friend at the grocery store just to say hi. I spent quite a bit of time talking to my mom well parked up Provo Canyon. I took a bath in the river. 🙂 and then I went and visited my friend Robyn, who showed me the house that she’s thinking about buying, had dinner with my old buddy Matt and talked a lot about what’s been going on in his life and what his hopes are for the future. And then I swung by my friend Cory’s house just long enough to get him a hug and say goodbye.

Things went relatively well with the business today. I had two mechanics working, one pretty much just shadowing the other. And it went fine.

There’s a lot going on in this little brain of mine. I spent a good chunk of the day pondering about things I’m working through in my own heart and mind. I’m grateful to be making progress.

On that note…

#1. I am grateful that I was able to meet up with my friends and that they live relatively close together, so it doesn’t take that much time to visit each one of them.

#2. I am grateful that my car is still running well. My power steering pump is whining pretty good, so I need to check that. I thought it was my transmission whining, but thankfully, it’s not. I didn’t think to get power steering fluid tonight, so I’ll have to get that figured out later.

#3. I’m grateful to have the financial blessings that I have. It’s nice to have the funds to be able to offer to help people.

#4. Ungrateful to have beautiful mountains around me for at least a little while. I might spend a little bit of time up in them tomorrow before I head out, if I do indeed head out tomorrow.

#5. I’m grateful to have been learning so many good lessons in life recently. It’s amazing how different my life is now than it was just five or six months ago. It’s all so radically different in the last month and a half to two months, in many ways. I wonder a little bit if things will continue to change at such a rapid rate, or if they will slow down and hold steady for a while.

#6. I was really proud of myself today. There was a situation where normally I would have chosen to be impatient to the point of possibly hurting someone else’s feelings. Today I didn’t go there. I’m really grateful for that. That’s one of the things that it’s been so important for me to get over. I want to be just endlessly patient, kind, understanding, etc. I’m so grateful for the progress.

#7. I am grateful that I will be getting to bed a little bit closer to on time again. It’s just shy of 10:30, and that makes about two days in a row, if I finish getting my butt in bed here soon. I wouldn’t be surprised if I get sidetracked a little bit, but hey, I’m doing better lately.

Well, my wonderful people, I’m gonna float off to bed. Thanks, for spending some of your precious time in my world. 🙂

Loves and hugs.

Lift the World.

~ stephen