Kristi is moving to Germany in a few months and has to do many things in preparation. She has to get her passport together. She has to move out (and give her furniture to me). She has to figure out how to say good-bye. Before she does any of that, though, she has to raise missionary support-- x amount of dollars a month in order to live and teach abroad. She decided to go back to her roots in Concrete, WA to tell the people there what she is about to do. A trek to Concrete hadn't been made for about ten years, so I didn't want her to do it on her own. Going back and walking the same paths you grew up on is something that I think would be hard to do alone and when she asked me to come with, I jumped at the opportunity. She didn't tell me I would have to get up at 6 AM, but it was 100% worth it.
As we drove the familiar path of I-5 north, it felt like any trip to the cabin. When we pulled off in Mt. Vernon and headed east, the trip became a journey to the past. Fields passed by and we entered the North Cascades. This is a trip that Kristi knew well and one that I sometimes wish were more familiar to me...especially after this trip. The mountains were freshly covered with snow, there was a huge herd of elk in a pasture and there was nature that I don't get enough of on 3rd Ave. West. When we entered the tiny town of Concrete--the town that will always remain the same way we left it--memories came into my mind. Memories of choir tours and Sunday school classes.
Walking through the doors of the Community Bible Church, I felt like an adult. There are few points in my life where I have truly felt like I am an adult, but this was one of them. The growing up points so far have been things like buying lettuce, writing a check, and buying a book of stamps...but going back to my roots, this was a point that reaches far beyond the postage stamps. This trip was like time travel...Concrete was frozen in time and Kristi and I advanced ten years. Nobody recognized me unless they saw me next to Kristi. Here we were, the young Dahlstrom girls, but not so young anymore. We've grown. Our hair is no longer cut into mullets and our adventurous hearts stretch far beyond the Skagit River.
Though Seattle is the place I have called home for the last fourteen years, it was important for me to be reminded of the very first place I called home. It was important to be reminded that there is a part of my heart that will always be from that small town. I often wonder what life would look like now had I remained in the mountains longer. I might have become more prone to mountainous adventures like the other four Dahlstroms. Or perhaps I would have been more desperate to get away from home. There's no way of knowing what that picture would look like...that's the beauty of it. Certain events occur that shape the story of our lives and once they happen, there's no turning back. Life is about moving forward, but this trip taught me not to forget the past. It was a way of taking a step back and looking at my life now.
It's exciting. It's leading me in a completely new direction and there is a light directing only the path right in front of me. One step at a time, that's how I'm moving through life right now. First, I will finish spring quarter. Then, I will board a plane to Austria (God willing) and climb mountains in the Alps. After that...well, nobody knows what's after that. And that's where the excitement comes from.
