Culture Shock?

I am originally from the great northwest; Oregon City, to be exact.  I grew up there.  From birth to college, I called it my home.  I am also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Being a minority for me was normal.  A minority in my faith.  But it was all I knew.  I had many friends from church, but I also had that much more in friends that didn't practice my faith.  I loved all my friends.  And still do, as I have kept contact with many of them.  Despite having different values and goals, they respected me without me having to ask for it.  Some of them may have had other habits that I didn't do, but they never once pressured me into trying anything and I love them all the more for it.  I loved my home, I loved my school, I loved the geography all around me.

I grew up, I got married, and I started a family.

Then one day, as my husband was just laid off from work, we decided to move to Utah.  This move wasn't just a whim.  We had both been in Utah before as singles going to college at one point or another.  Neither of us finished school.  But we felt we should go back because that's where our original schooling was and my husband wanted to finish.  So, in 2003 we took our two children and moved to the desert.  I had every intention of moving back to Oregon as soon as my husband walked the stage to get his degree.  Eight years and two additional kids later, we find ourselves back in the northwest.  I won't go into detail about all the happenings in the eight years.  That's a story for another time, each with it's own honor.

But I can tell you this:  I am a different person, at least, I think I am.

Moving back wasn't entirely a choice.  It's always been in the back of my mind as I spent year after year in the high elevation.  But I wanted to move back on a positive note.  Not out of necessity.  But I guess, in the end, does it really matter how you get there as long as you get what you want?  Well, yes, it does.  It it matters more than I ever assumed it would.  You see, we have a funny thing called a brain.  And that thing; it holds all of our thoughts.  Our thoughts are what control our attitude.  When you have a certain goal in mind and a certain way you want to attain that goal, when things go off kilter, at least for me, my thought process about myself and why things didn't go my way turns into "what's wrong with me?"  It spins in my head over and over.

Being back in the northwest is a a bittersweet emotion for me.  Just before moving away from Utah, I had a plan.  I was going to move in with my sister until my husband found a place to live.  I knew I had at least two to three months before moving out of the state.  I was going to have a party with all my Utah friends and family in attendance.  I was going to say a proper good-bye.  That didn't happen.  Instead, about a week after imagining what the last two months in Utah would be like, we left.  It was a good thing.  It needed to happen.  But I wasn't prepared.  In my mind, the last eight years, I had been planning and plotting a way to get back to Oregon.  Pretty much since the day we left Oregon.  But I could never have prepared for the way I would feel coming back after having been away for eight years.

Something I never let myself in on, was emotional ties.  I kinda forgot about that aspect of living.  Utah seemed so temporary to me.  Ask any of my Utah friends and they will tell you how much I missed home.  I was so busy occupying my mind with the thought of "how do I get back" that I didn't notice how attached I was becoming to my Utah friends and life.  Don't get me wrong, I still firmly believe that Utah pales in comparison to the northwest's beauty (sorry Utah friends).  But when you spend eight years in one place, you slowly meld into your surroundings.  You become "one of them".  I remember when we first moved to Utah, my views on the church membership there.  I stereotyped it, big time.  And I'll still attest that many of them are true in many parts of Utah.  Be them good or bad.  It's different there.  The teachings and gospel are the same, but the people and the atmosphere are strikingly different.

When we moved back, I found myself thinking (a lot) "Why are they doing it like that?  Why don't they do it like such-and-such ward?" and "What the heck?  What's wrong with them?" referring to the church congregations in the northwest that I have attended since being back.  Then I immediately thought to myself, "Oh no, what did I just think?  What happened to me?"  Did I really become a Utahan?  I found myself strangely displaced in the congregations here.  A feeling I certainly never expected to feel being back home.  I guess it's more me.  I guess it's more mental.  I don't tell you this to pick at the way members of the church are in Utah versus the members of the church here in the northwest.  I am making an observation more about myself and how I changed but never saw it coming.  I never noticed it.  It just...happened.  And I'm not sure what to do with it yet.  It's something that I have just recently discovered.  In the beginning I was frustrated with myself.  Why am I struggling here?  The place I was born, the place where I grew up, the home that I know and STILL love?  That's when you truly do some sole searching.

I love the northwest.  My heart is truly here and I'm where I need to be, I know it.  But maybe this journey, for me at least, is to discover who I truly am.  I don't have to be just an Oregonian, I can be a Utahan too, and that's okay.  There's nothing wrong with blends.  Without blending different ingredients, how do you have a wonderful dish?