Black Holes and Question Marks

Hi.

Have you ever bumped into someone you'd not seen in a very long time but with whom you used to be very good friends and found that you didn't know what to say? Maybe you exchanged a few pleasantries, and asked how the other was doing, what was new in his or her life...and then the pauses drew long...and you realized that life had taken you on such extremely different paths that even attempting to relate what had transpired over the past few years in a way that the other could understand was impossible.

Returning from New Jersey feels a little like that. So much so that I'll admit I've procrastinated returning to these pages. But I decided tonight that it must be done. But I'm not going to try to relate what transpired in New Jersey, at least within these paragraphs, in a way that you can understand. And so...

I live in New Mexico now. At Philmont Scout Ranch, to be specific. The first time I saw this place was approximately four years ago. Dad and I were on our way to Brigham Young University for my first year of college. What a memorable time! I had a strong sense of the fact that I was leaving home, in a way so different from the many solo trips about the country to which I was so accustomed. Though I will likely still call it home for a while yet, I knew that our little house in Texas had joined the ranks of other places that I merely visited, not inhabited. It was then that my life first became marked with the big question mark that still hovers over it. It was a distinct, very unsettling sensation. Thus Philmont was a fleeting and quickly-forgotten memory in that journey, buried by much weightier concerns.

Of course, over time things became clearer and I made plans and put thumbtacks on a road map of my life, charting a course over the next several years. I got used to student living, worked my way into a groove and began to feel very certain of myself, my life, and the new people and occupations that began to fill it. I grew to love mountains, preferring them to even my native flat-land.

Then the revelation of serving a full-time mission put a big, foggy question mark back into my view. An eighteen-month canyon suddenly dropped into my path, and I had no way of knowing what lay on the other side. A mission has a knack for making you forget about that question mark, if you let it, like a black hole obliterating everything before and after its appearance. The only thing that exists is the mission. And then before you know it you've been hurled out on the other side into the middle of a living, breathing, dizzyingly fast-paced world, where life is complicated and doesn't understand what you've just experienced. And the question mark is back.

Philmont is a good place to go for those just emerging from the black hole. Dad may never have thought to send an application here on my behalf if not for that brief stop so long ago. It feels good to be in the mountains. It's a beautiful, quiet place. Though I work at base camp in the Trading Post, I flee to the back country whenever I can. It's nice to get away. Still, I feel like a square peg in a round hole much of the time, and even the comfort of the mountains wouldn't be enough without my little sister. Emma is like an anchor. I marvel at how she has grown up and changed. She is so sure of herself, confident and collected no matter whose company she is in, bright and glittery and laughing and free to shout her brilliant presence to the world. I feel as though I know best who I am and what my place is on this earth when I am with her. As excited as I am to go back to school, I can't imagine going back to Utah, where I used to feel in my element, without her. She is my touchstone.

I want to make one thing clear. The black hole is the best thing that has ever happened to me, I would recommend it to anyone--but the journey back to a normal dimension is long and often awkward. Sometimes I wish I was still there. I miss its simplicity. As a missionary I knew exactly who I was, where I fit in, and what I should do. Despite venturing out everyday with no real knowledge of precisely how things would turn out, tomorrow felt as sure and solid and safe as though it had been prophesied to me.

There is a certain excitement about a big question mark in your life. And experience has taught me that I am being watched over, and every big question mark has a happy ending if you listen and follow with the right ears. That's one thing I am sure of.

Another is that, no matter what metamorphoses I may have undergone over the past couple years, I am still Holly...something.