Rachel is Going?

In case my web address has ever made anyone curious, this is the post where I explain all of that.

I totally meant for the address and the name of my blog to go together...so...like this:

Rachel is going....There and Back Again....

Like...on a journey! I'll admit, there was a bit of Bilbo Baggins running through my mind as I named my blog. His story frightened and intrigued me almost at the same time.

"It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step on the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no telling where you might be swept off to."


I think life is like that a lot. Every single thing that you do limits and defines your next set of choices. Every time you go out your door, you risk almost everything.

Seriously! You never know what might happen to you. The whole world is possible. That excites and frightens me at the same time.

Along those same lines, I connected tremendously with Samwise Gamgee.

"If I take one more step, it'll be the farthest away from home I've ever been."

Is that not also true? I feel like High School could be compared to running on a treadmill. You're running and running but never really going anywhere. Along those same lines, College could be compared to running in a forest. Every time you take a step, you're leaving familiar ground in favor of something new. Really.

In High School, the most exciting and new thing that ever happened to me was a pep rally. Maybe a bad break-up.

In College, those things are low on the excitement scale. Just this weekend, I went to a free Superhero dance on campus, I conducted an experiment on Termites, I walked three or four miles around Provo for no reason, I got a new roommate, a letter from a Missionary, and I got to go to FHE with my French Professor and his family on Monday. People around me get Mission Calls to crazy countries (Sierra Leone, Africa, Moscow, Russia and Nagoya, Japan, for example) all the time, and I interact with people who have served in equally crazy countries (Uruguay and Ireland and London, for example).

Yeah. Definitely new ground being covered here.

The theme here that I'm trying to focus on in my life is the journey of it all.

It's direly important that no one ever forgets that life is a journey. Life is not a sit-down kind of thing. It is not a leisure activity that one may pick up and put down at will. It isn't a silly thing, like underwater basket weaving or badminton.

Life is also to be enjoyed in pieces. Bits and bites and beautiful moments. Even the bad--no one can take so much all at once. Most roads turn somewhere. Scenery changes. I've made a point to expect myself to grow with those changes, to enjoy them for their differences. After all, God will made the road--why wouldn't it be beautiful naturally?

I talked last night to a good friend about the journey of finding ourselves. I explained my desires for myself--above all, just wanting to learn how to be Rachel. The realization that I don't really know how to be Rachel, and the urgency I feel about learning who Rachel is and should be.
He talked about having passed that point. One thing that I really admired was his desire to become as good of a man as the Prophets who came before us--but another thing that he told me was that now that he knows who he is, he now has a set image of who he wants to be.
The point here is this: everyone's road looks different. My road looks different than any of my roommate's roads, any of my family's roads, and even will look different than my husband's road someday. Because the journey that I will take will be unique to me and my mindsets and my thoughts--even if my road is parallel to another's road.

So here I am, rambling on about the name of my blog and I haven't really said anything actually.

The point of it is this: Rachel is going There and Back Again.

I began with God, and I'll travel around the world and through my life, ultimately ending up with God again (I hope). This is merely a document of that journey. But--it's not really a document of the things I do. It's a document of the things I think. I'm sure that someday, I'll look back and give you a different definition of what "There and Back Again" means to me. But isn't that the beauty of documenting things?

We document to observe change.

So, in a way, this blog is a document of my change. A document of each shift in perspective that helps get me "back again". A document of the change in my thoughts as I grow up and learn things.

I'd like to end how I began: with Lord of the Rings (I will always be a nerd). Frodo suffered quite a bit, but in the end, he found happiness in himself. That is something I'd like to always keep in mind--no matter how much I suffer, it's never the end. The end will be happy if I persevere and never give up.

It worked for Frodo--why not me?