Taking Back Alaska

Bear watching/clam digging in Alaska

I came to Salt Lake at the tail end of the worst 6 months of my life.  After a huge disappointment in the love department I managed to still attend enough classes and beg for enough extra time to finish enough final papers to graduate with my masters degree.  For months after I felt the pressure and feelings of failure of not being able to find a job. I separated my shoulder and so I was not able to run or hike or bike or play frisbee or even swim...basically everything that keeps me happy, healthy, and connected.  I tried to deal with it...and by that I mean I watched every episode of Parks and Recreation.  I spent hours applying for jobs and more hours sitting in parks reading, hoping no one could tell how pathetic I felt. I did the mind-numbing walk/run up and down 'the Y' over and over because it was the only thing I could do with my injury that was challenging but safe.  I was offered a job in St. George.  I asked for a day to think about it.  When I called to tell them I accepted I discovered a voicemail saying they rescinded their offer and didn't want to hire me after all.  I had no more energy to deal with the pain and isolation of being injured and unemployed.

Life was leaving a lot to be desired.

Then FINALLY at the end of a miserable summer I got a job in a hospital in Salt Lake.  Moving to a big city sounded like something I would never do, and I hadn't really wanted to work in a hospital, but I was DESPERATE.  So I moved.  At first it was as miserable as before, another new breakup, no friends, no familiarity or structure...

Then....I found my perfect apartment, I found trails behind my house, I found the best institute class in the whole church (I absolutely insist on this).  I took my sling off and started playing ultimate frisbee, making friends at work, feeling at home in a ward.  A friend gave me Mika, my little friendly ball of love and fur.  After 6 months I started feeling like I had true friends.  I started running again, I started climbing, I stopped watching Netflix, I dated, I had a summer with NO free weekends, each was filled with an epic adventure.  

There were still ups and downs, and those worried me.  Every time I started to feel something that reminded me of the summer of misery, I would feel certain everything would go back to JUST like before, my life was going to fall apart again, and maybe I wouldn't be able to move to a magic city that would cure me this time.  I attributed a lot of my negative feelings to outside pressure from church or boys or girls or whatever I could dream up.

One day I went for a walk with my most resilient and level-headed friend, Hels Bells.  I told her about how I would never be able to feel like myself unless I moved back to Alaska, and how all of the social pressures that were getting to me me don't exist there.  She sweetly and wisely pointed out that the issues I was having were coming from inside of me, and I couldn't escape them by moving because they would go with me wherever I went. 

It wasn't immediate, but months later, it clicked.  I started a campaign in my head called "Take Back Alaska."  Whenever I felt social pressure (real or imagined) pushing against who I truly was I would tell myself to take back Alaska, i.e. be the person I felt like Alaska made me, and not who I felt pressure to be.  And, predictably, the pressure lifted and I became happier.  I had a 'best friend class' EXPLOSION that grew to feel like a family, engaged in long and frequent life changing discussions, got promotions, raises, and opportunities at work, contributed at church, and met physical and recreational goals (half marathon PR wwwhhhhhaaatt!).  

I took myself back from myself!  I didn't need to move to Alaska.  The wall that kept me from feeling satisfied crumbled and I realized that I had actually succeeded in building everything that I wanted HERE in Utah.

Then I went back to visit Alaska.  

Camping in Alaska.  Happy.

I was awed by the free and the wild.  The wholesomeness, depth, and beauty of the connections I made with friends and family made my soul sing.  I got to alternate between feeling totally lost in the mountains and absolutely at home with my family and oldest friends.  I started to get the itch to go to the places I had heard about but never visited, to live somewhere smaller where I could make a difference, and foster fewer but stronger connections.

I was torn.  Utah was warm, familiar, lovely, easy, exciting, accessible, and full of friends and type I fun.  What more is there?

But after the first few days back

I found myself feeling antsy unless I was looking for jobs in Alaska.  The continuing bliss had the slightest shift toward tasting stale.  I started to think about what is really mine here.  My apartment isn't mine, my job isn't mine, the canyons and desert and mountains I love will always be here.  The only thing that is mine is my life, and that goes with me wherever I go.  

When faced with a choice between something new that I am not sure if I will like, love, or hate or something old that I am positive I will like, I will nearly always pick the new thing.  I'm too curious to let questions like that go unanswered.  So when a new opportunity presented itself in Alaska, it was too much to resist.  It's time to conquer (or fail at) something new.  I'm going back to Alaska for a few months to work, and see if it's something I want to make more permanent.  I don't think the opportunities will ever look better than right now.  The things I am reluctant to leave here I am powerless to keep any longer than grace allows anyway.

So if you're looking for me this fall, I'm going to be Taking Back Alaska.