Sometimes, I Just Feel Like Marty

So, do you know that scene in Back to the Future, where Marty is disappearing because his parents didn't kiss yet?  Well, I am starting to feel a lot like Marty because I feel like my identity, my past is being erased.  And it's been happening for a while now.  A lot of things that I used to identify with are being destroyed.  For example:

Pluto not being a planet.  I only partially kid on this one, but it is still an over reaching theme.  When I was in school, I learned that there were nine planets.  There was even the little rhyme to help us memorize them: My very eager mother just served us nine pies.  Now ... there are no pies in the rhyme!  It's not like Pluto was destroyed, or removed from the galaxy.  But it is still no longer a planet.  This is something that is silly, but it still gets me at times, because it says that the knowledge I was had as a kid, and was true when I was a kid is no longer right.  I don't know ... maybe I'm just being mental on this one ... but the next two better illustrate my point.

Westland Ward was disbanded. This was the ward I spent 8 years in.  This is the ward my dad was a bishop in.  This is the ward I was baptized in, grew up in, and spent a lot of time in.  And last year, it no longer existed.  The ward had been shrinking over the last few years, so I can understand the logistics of it.  But ... still.  That was the closest thing I had to a 'home' ward.  And now, it is just a memory.  I mean, the stake is still the Westland Stake, and the building is still in Westland.  But now, there is no longer a Westland Ward.  This was hard for me to hear, even after being away from Michigan and in particular that ward for several years.  I made friends in that ward.  I had activities in that ward.  It was a hard thing to realize that my old ward was no longer a ward at all.

Shipp Hall was torn down. This was my Freshman hall.  Apartment 113.  It was only two doors down from where my mom spent her first year of college.  That is where I first started growing into an adult.  I had my first real heartbreak there.  I had many a late night final and early morning paper session there.  I had fights with room mates there, and I had many late night bonding experiences with room mates there.  That is where I started learning about myself as an adult and what I wanted to become.  I started putting the painful things in my past behind me there.  It was my home for a year.  My first home away from home.  And now, it is gone.  And going to be replaced too.  That was hard, driving by the place where I used to sleep and live, and see just an empty lot instead.  That was probably the hardest one for me to take. 

All these things around me that I used to identify with are slowly disappearing.  And if they are not disappearing, they are changing.  Just like my family.  It's no longer the same now that Erica and Andrew have Emma.  I love them all, and I am so glad that I get to see Erica and Andrew more now that I live in Utah.  I love the fact that Emma is here now and I get to hear her laugh and see her smile.  But during Christmas, where for the first time we were not there as a complete family ... it hurt.  It was a nice Christmas to be with part of my family, but it was still really hard not having everyone there.

At times I am all ready to move on with my future, to be the woman I want to be.  To move on to Graduate school, to a real job, to finding my own family.  But then comes those moments where I look at my past and seeing it disappear in front of me.  And in those moments I don't want to be the adult.  I just want to be the kid again, to feel safe and secure that nothing will change.

But, I guess life just doesn't work out that way.  Life is meant to move forward, progress.  To take the old, build on it, and construct something new.  So, here's to change and something new.