I just went on a walk to pick up take out on a Sunday night and felt it: the pull I have towards this place. 

Walking past the six-foot-tall sunflowers, the Russian sage growing on corners, the neighborhood cats that follow me down the block, the myriad of dog walkers in every direction, and the view of earth beyond the houses that sits miles high, I felt lucky to be here. 

I never expected to live in Salt Lake City but here I am. Most people probably only have one idea of what Salt Lake City is like, which is religious, and that's not at all incorrect. In a weird way though, despite the conservatism of its suburbs, Salt Lake City checks a lot of boxes of what I wanted in a place to live.

At one point on this blog, I wrote: "If I could choose, I would live in a place where you could hike on the weekends, somewhere quieter and smaller where houses have yards, maybe down South where winters aren't as long." And here I am, in a city that's smaller, quieter, living in a house with a yard, hiking on the weekdays and weekends and waking up to blue skies that are so common they can almost seem oppressive.

Honestly, part of me can't believe people actually grow up here. When I moved here, it felt like another world and so I looked to books for some history, turning to Amy Irvine, Scott Carrier, and Wallace Stegner for some guidance. It was Stegner who taught me, as a Midwesterner, to look at the brown, parched land that comes in the summer differently, writing in Thoughts in a Dry Land: "You have to get over the color green; you have to quit associating beauty with gardens and lawns; you have to get used to an inhuman scale." An inhuman scale. I'm reminded of that phrase often while I'm here.

Oddly though, the proximity of everything in Salt Lake City is what I find myself liking the most. It might be the thing that has improved my quality of life the most. I can get to places after work multiple nights a week and not feel utterly exhausted after due to the commute. The relative smallness of this city also means it's a community I can quickly find a place in. A year in, I know writers, I know activists, I know legislators personally. The mid-size city migration, which I very much feel a part of, has its perks.

But you know what people don't tell you about getting a thing you had planned / hoped for? It's often so different from what you had in mind. I can speak of the positives of Salt Lake City and post photos from my time in its mountains but of course, my mind is a mix of emotions. My mind races on the weekdays, for whatever reason, and relaxes on the two days off I get a week. Recently I wrote in my journal: I can't tell if I'm happy or sad here. I think I'm a little bit of both, all the time. I know that sounds depressing but it's sort of just the truth. I upped and moved away from my friends and family, and while I'm slowly making friends here, there is a lingering sense of loneliness too.

Alain de Botton assures me this is okay. I read his book The Art of Travel earlier this year and he wrote a line about the wavering nature of human emotions, especially evident when traveling, that felt so perfectly accurate. While vacationing in the Bahamas, he wrote, "My body and mind were to prove temperamental accomplices in the mission of appreciating my destination. The body found it hard to sleep and complained of heat, flies, and difficulty digesting hotel meals. The mind meanwhile revealed a commitment to anxiety, boredom, free-floating sadness, and financial alarm." 

He went on to say: "The condition [actual happiness] rarely endures for longer than ten minutes." A comforting, infuriating realization that pretty much sums it up.

Despite an array of mixed emotions, I know that whenever I leave Salt Lake City, I will miss the mountains deeply. I will miss them like I miss the kids I worked with in Honduras. I will miss them like I miss nights with my girlfriends in Chicago and Sundays with my parents at home. Every place I have lived has given me something different and I wonder if I will ever have it all (i.e. will I ever not be plagued by feelings of anxiety, boredom, free-floating sadness, and financial alarm?).

Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe the best I can do is write these thoughts down and practice gratitude and finally, make myself a therapy appointment.