Sunday, December 14, 2008

Two and a half months

I'm back. And I'm home. I'm home in so many different ways and it feels incredible. I'm happy to be alive and sitting where I'm sitting today. I've got a lot to talk about a lot of people to hug for that one. And it can't all be contained in this one happy and smile-filled post, but I'll do my best to put a small portion in.

I'm sitting in my childhood home, upstairs in my room. My computer is sitting on my spacious desk while I type at it dressed in my pajamas, old man slippers, and the incredible scarf that Molly made me. The furnace is on and I'm toasty and happy. There's snow outside like there used to be.

I just read a lot from my journal and from some of my older posts. Just things from the past couple of months. It feels *so* good to read that journal. My posting here fell off about two months ago, but my journal has never stopped. I loved reading back and remembering so vividly all those things that I experienced. Things that I had completely forgotten but that were important to me at the time. That phrase, "important to me at the time" is something that I want to talk about tonight.

Do I remember that time we had to push the van up the hill? Do I remember the lessons I learned from it? Do I remember the list that I made the night after I talked with Heather? Do I remember how it felt to take that long walk? Do I remember how fun battling brad at battlefront was this semester? Do I remember running all the way home, down-hill, to get back in time to play warcraft? Do I remember singing that duet with Jake in mission prep? Do I remember the fireside?

With the exception of the van, those are things that I wrote about throughout the past two and a half months. I write pretty important things in my journal. I never really thought that I did, but reading this evening helped me see that a little bit. If it was good enough to get into the journal it certainly meant something to me. It changed my life and made me think. It was something that I wanted to remember. Those things that happened, whether they were things that I did or that someone else did, changed those days forever and made me feel differently.

I've written and thought a lot before about honoring the past version of myself. The first time I can remember doing this was late one night as I was wrapping up one of my very first emo-posts. As I came to finishing it, I realized that it was pretty personal, very long, and might bring some people down instead of lifting them up. Those were things that I didn't like to post, especially that last one. But as I argued with myself over whether to delete it or not, I wrote something like this: "I really want to take this down. But as a monument to the way that I felt tonight, to the person who I was tonight, I'll leave it up. Because I know tomorrow-me is going to want to take it down. But for what I feel and who I am tonight, I'll leave it." Ever since then I've kind of had that mindset. When I feel passionately about something I know that there's a good chance I won't feel like that in the near future. And when I stop feeling like that, then what happens?

Looking back on these past few months, on all these events and occasions, I realize that I did quite a bit of feeling. Those things I mentioned, and many others as well, made me into "someone" those nights and days. I left monuments to them through my journal and sometimes my blog. But I hadn't ever really revisited them. They existed, but what good is a monument that is never visited?

The moral of my story? I read tonight. I read to prepare for a post I was planning that was entirely different from the one that I just wrote. But something cool happened as I read. I remembered those things that have happened. And as I remembered them, I felt like all those different Christopher Thatchers that existed on those discrete nights came back together to be me again. I feel very whole right now. Whole like everything I did this past semester hasn't been forgotten. Whole like I'm living my life on purpose and moving forward. I feel whole like I haven't forgotten the things that are important. It's a difficult feeling to describe, but it is important to me.

Those things were important to me at the time that they happened. And they're important to me now as well. When I forget about things, what changes? Is it the event itself? "It was important to me at the time, but it has fundamentally changed since then, so it is no longer important"? Or is it myself that changes? "It was important to me at the time, but since then I have fundamentally changed, and it is therefore no longer important"? I don't necessarily know the answer to that question.

But I'll tell you something good. Reading and thinking and praying tonight makes me very happy to be the same me that experienced all those things. Those things haven't changed. I haven't changed, in the respect that I'm still the same me that experienced them. And I'm happy about that.

I'm proud to report that I made it through all of those experiences. I survived pushing that van up the hill. I survived those rounds of battlefront and dota. I survived the physics final. I really did find out that girl's name. I did that laundry, and you better believe it got clean and dry. I shopped at Lee's. I stayed up late, and a couple times I even went to bed early. I was part of apartment 36. I cared about those guys and they cared about me. I was part of a quorum and a ward. I made friends. I got better at Ultimate, and I did play in that tournament. Yes, those things did happen. And yes, I do remember them.

The past few months have changed me forever. I could say that about any sequence of months in my life. There have been ups and downs, but all in all I'm proud of what has been accomplished.

I'm happy to announce that I'll be back here more often. Like I said at the beginning, I'm back. Don't expect daily updates about my life, but do expect a couple of posts a week about what I'm thinking.

Thanks for reading friends. Thanks for being around. It's been a good adventure thus far. I hope that you're all doing well. I do care. Good luck on everything. And if I can do something for you, let me know, cause that stuff makes me happy. Keep on trucking, friends. I know I will.

Here I go, happy to be getting better.

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