2022-07-05 — Utah

Hiya, folks.

I’m parked beside a cemetery about to bed down for the night. I’ve stayed here before, so it’s… familiar.

Been a long day.

After leaving yesterday and 8:30 ish. I drove all night for about 10 hours or so, finally stopping when the sun came up.

I noticed that the cut on the passenger front tire was a heck of a lot worse than what I thought it was before we left. Sitting in the gas station bay, I realized that the cut was so deep that you could see that even the inner wire in the tire had been cut through in places.

So I swapped the front tire to the rear and the rear to the front, so the rear tire would be the one with the cut and be a lot less problematic should it blow.

Then I planned to get a tire in Chadron Nebraska, so that I was sure we’d have a good tire for the rest of the trip and not be worried about a blowout on that one.

It’s 11:11… again. Seems like I see that number all the time.

Anyway, mom drove from i-80 to Chadron, Nebraska, and then she helped keep me awake for the drive from Chadron to Provo, Utah.

We made amazing time, honestly. Getting into the Provo hospital in South Provo about 8:00. I think Google had the drive around 24 or 25 hours, and that’s pretty much what we did, because we had almost no stops.

We stopped for gas, just quick stops. We stopped for food a few times, again, just quick stops, we swapped the tires, and we got a new tire, and that was pretty much it.

It’s funny, this was the longest drive that I’ve done straight through with my mom, and yet it was the first one that we did without pulling over to nap. She tried to sleep while I drove, and I tried to sleep well she drove, and we did pretty well, honestly.

Got to see my aunt after we arrived at the hospital… Two of my aunts, actually. It was a bit hard to see the one who was in the hospital. I had memories come back to mind of fun times I’ve spent with her.

Life is so short.

I really do hope there’s something good and happy after this life. Hope we get to keep our memories.

(sigh)

I’m super tired. After saying goodbye to my aunt for the night, and after my mom left with my other aunt and uncle to stay at their house, I decided to go take a drive down memory lane.

Multiple memory lanes…

I drove past the BYU apartment complex I spent so much time in that was such an important place in my life for multiple years while I was a student at byu.

Then I went past the high school I graduated from, remembering a little bit, seeing the new construction. It’s going to look a ton different than it did when I was there, at least on one end. There’s a huge addition being built where the student parking used to be, where I used to park my VW bus.

I drove by the house I used to live in while I was a high school student. I drove to a park that has a lot of memories attached to it. I drove by the Mount Timpanogos Mormon temple, as well as the school I used to teach at.

I drove by the house of an old friend of mine where, for a time, I was sort of an adopted family member.

I miss those days.

Then I drove by my brother’s house, but I didn’t stop, as I am not really in the space right now to socialize.

It’s really hard for me to be in Utah.

Really hard.

But I’m here, and it’s important to be here right now. I have no idea how much time my aunt has left. Could be just minutes. Could be years still. But I want to be here. She’s not doing well right now.

Best close my eyes before I let myself get too depressed. 🙃

Going to visit my aunt again tomorrow, and I’m also going to spend some time with my friend Cory when he gets done with work.

It’s good to get away a bit. At the same time, everywhere I go, I’m here, so there’s no running away from the challenges going on in my brain.

But it certainly is an adventure.

Lift the World

~ stephen