My childhood was spent in good 'ole Tremonton, Utah for 18 years of my life. There was really nothing outside of this little, farming community. I never knew what drew my parent's to this place.
As a child always yearning, I wanted out. I wanted to explore and see the world "outside" of the tradition of tractors, fields, and farm animals.
High school was filled with so many insecurities, and I had a build an angst against this town. I put the blame on indivduals, bad experiences, pain, and I built a wall against this place I felt was never home for me. I always told my parents, "I hate this town, and I can not wait for the day to get out."
The sweet age of eighteen arrives, and I "got out". I sought an education, explored a Kerouac's experience of the East coast, and lusted over my travels of the world. I experience love's won, lost, and forgotten. In trying to find myself, I lost the naivete of a eighteen-year-old. In return, I became a woebegone twenty-something-year-old experiencing a spiraling depression.
And someone came along; a politically savvy, Punk-listening-wearing, environmental inclined, go green, vegetarian-eating, young man who truly define what loving life was. He put blame on no one, had patience like no one I ever met, never raised his voice. Yes, I met my husband.
A true love found, a faith regained, and a beautiful, baby girl born.
I visit Tremonton quite often now. Before my husband and I jet out on this new life of ours, I want my little girl to spend as much time as she can, taste the open skies, and to get a little peek of my childhood.
This weekend, a sudden shift of love has overwhelmed me of how I had felt about my past and ofTremonton. The more and more I revisit this place, a profoundly tender, and affectionate love begins to reveal. Unraveling the hostility, and bitterness of the past; more-so in forgiving my younger self.
The significant memories of running through the wheat fields, the taste of honey-butter County fair scones touching the rim of mouth. The one-of-kind outfits I wore during high school. O' my! O' my!
I may not have our family reside here in the near the future, but I really do love the place.
There is a designated nostalgia that seeps in my bones every time I think of Tremonton.
I think so much of the little, black hair girl, running on the rooftops of her 261 South home, and parading around in mud.
Isn't the past a glorious thing?
