back to December

If you could go back to December, would you? Fresh start, redo the past four months, but you lose everything you learned and all the memories.  (I’m a sucker for the poll questions, don't you guys know!!) 

I contemplated the question, honestly.  

It was April 7th, and Jules and I were about to pack all of our stuff up in our Ponderosa room, but first, we left to go get dinner.  As we were going down the 5 mile road that leads you to the resort for the second to last time (5 miles up north fork road is the actual address, I wish I was joking), Back to December by Taylor Swift came on.  It was the first time I had heard that song in a while, and it timely came right after I had finished a meltdown about how I felt stupid for uprooting my life to Utah when I felt that I had hardly gotten anything out of it.  

Going back to December would realistically save me a lot of tears, days when I didn’t want to leave my bed, and interactions with people I hope I’ll never see again.  

But, if I went back, there’s a lot I would lose.  

Part of my meltdown was that I felt like I had regressed as a person.  I’ve taken the Myers Briggs test twice in my life, one right before Yellowstone, and one right when I got to Zion. 

 When I took it in May, I was an INFJ-T, which for those of you who don’t spend your days taking random online tests it means I was an introvert, intuitive, feeling (emotions over rationale), and judging (prefer a marked out path).  The first week of January on our way out to Zion, I retook the test and got ENFP-T.  Extroverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Prospective (go with the flow, flexible with life planning).    

I think that June to December of 2021 I was my highest self I’ve ever been, I was happier than ever and was for the first time in a while, proud of myself.  I felt like I had finally found a jive of who I was and who I wanted to be coming together.  

And since I had been in Utah, I felt that I had been taking steps back.  It wasn’t that I was mad or embarrassed that I had become introverted or liked to stick to a plan all of a sudden, but it was that I felt unfriendly and it reached a point that I had tried to be my extroverted self for so long and got nothing in return, that I was returned to being introverted at a time when I didn’t want to be alone.  And, that there was nothing spontaneous to do for a while that I was forced to just go to work, do school work, and then lay around.  

But, in this time that I thought I was regressing, I actually think I grew in ways I didn’t realize.  Jules and I navigated out west all by ourselves, I learned what I do and don’t want in a job, I realized how important interpersonal relationships are for me, I found happiness within myself when there was little around me to find it from, and I survived.  

There are also things I will inevitably miss.  Never again will it just be Jules and I against the world; living, working, and making the most out of days just the two of us.  I’ll miss the red rocks and the sunsets and the stars.  I’ll miss the opportunity to go horseback riding or rappelling or to hike through the Narrows (but I won’t miss Angel’s landing).  I’ll miss the fact that I was in my own little world with few worries besides what was right in front of me.  

So, would going back to December save me some heartache and tears? Sure.  But it would also take a lot from me. It was a growing and learning experience, that if I didn’t have there I would likely just have at another point in my life.  It redirected me to finding a path that I think will work out.