I make my way back to you tonight. It has been almost 2 years since my last visit to your rolling green mountains and majestic waterfalls. Never had I seen a place with such breath taking beauty until I found you. You have the kind of beauty that is so dramatic and so mesmerizing, so many times I felt as if you were not real. Surely we had not landed in this place for our new home. We vacationed to places like this, we didn’t get to live in places like this. Yet with patience and determination, we found our way to you, a home nestled in the rolling green mountains packed with Douglas Firs. You Oregon made me feel like an outdoor kid on Christmas Day every day. Driving to work watching the sun scrape over your mountain peaks that were actually volcanos at rest. Paddling your rivers that were so clear that 10 feet to the bottom looked like 2 feet. Your water was so clean I could drink right from your streams. Mountain biking through green mossy trails bordered with fluffy green walls felt like a scene from Star Wars. I felt grateful when I walked your trails, lighter, with a view point permanently imprinted on me. I would never settle for less after seeing you and spending time with you. You set the bar quite high.
Why couldn’t that had been enough? I wanted you to be beautiful, a chapter in my life that was an adventure of outdoor heaven, and that is all. Yet with your beauty came incredible pain. Pain that crippled me, imprisoned me. I felt that my view point was suddenly skewed, and for a while I could not see your beauty. I felt heavy when near you. Suddenly you were this place that took everything from me. I saw darkness on your mountains, in your rivers, there was nothing majestic about you anymore. So I left you, I gave up on the adventure, I got as far away from you as I could, I thought I may never return.
Thank God for time. The perception of time and space helps us grow stronger and let go of those pain shackles we feel obligated to carry when we lose a part of ourselves.
I could not avoid you for the rest of my life. I knew in my heart that my other half stayed with you, a part of me was with you. I come back to you each time remembering your original imprint on me, breathing in your fresh air, feeling grounded on your trails. I feel him when I am with you, he is everywhere, for you Oregon are where he was always supposed to be, where he can now rest. A visit to you is a visit to him. I feel my past life asking for my attention as I get closer and closer to your mountains. I heard his voice this evening as I closed my eyes on the plane say “Remember why we came here Erin.” I think remembering this in my current life, remembering this with these new chapters are so important. So, I’ll lay aside the distractions of day to day life, and I’ll recharge myself on your mountain tops. I’ll remember him as I visit you, and everything he was and still is. Present, respectful, immersed in nature. I’ll go back in time so that I may recharge and find my balance again.
I’ll embrace and belly laugh with forever friends. These are the kind of friends where you pick up right where you left off. The kind of friends that have carried the torch for me for years when I could not. Friends that cast their own pain to the side for me. Friends that got me back on your rivers, back on your trails, friends that helped me see through the darkness that clouded you for years. Strong, badass women that I am so grateful to know.
Life continues to move forward, and I keep changing as the years go by. You Oregon sparked that change with the first sight of your beautiful mountains. I’ll continue to come back and spend time with you into old age, spend time with the memory of him, belly laugh with some of the best women I know, I’ll remember why we came here. So hats off to you Oregon, through the scars, you are still so incredibly beautiful everywhere I look. That is all.
