And the day came...

...when the risk it took
to remain tight and closed in the bud
was more painful
than the risk it took to bloom.

Watch Adele's Hello

Adele will always have a special place in my heart. I had just moved to Salt Lake when 21 came out, and Jillian​ and I listened to it non-stop, first belting out Rolling in the Deep at the top of our lungs in the car after I'd picked her up from the U. It's the kind of album where you find a place in your life for each song, connecting lyrics to different people and experiences over the years. Someone Like You is for the regrets of ghosts of relationships past, while One and Only is for the hopes of relationships future. It's like a favorite book where, depending upon where you are in your life and what you're feeling, it will resonate with you in a new way. I'll be forever grateful to Jillian for being my first roommate and friend in Utah. (And shout-out to cousin Petey-Pete for inviting me up for a visit the summer before.)

Adele issued a statement a couple days ago about her new album, 25: "My last record was a break-up record, and if I had to label this one, I would call it a make-up record. Making up for lost time. Making up for everything I ever did and never did... 25 is about getting to know who I've become..."

I've learned in life that it's never too late for now. 

That there is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered. 

I know that growth is painful. Change is painful. But nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don't belong. 

I can affirm that however late you think you are, however many chances you think you may have missed, however many mistakes you feel you have made or talents you think you don't have, or however far from home and family and God you feel you have traveled, I testify that you have NOT traveled beyond the reach of divine love. It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ's atonement.

And I testify that Pinterest is WHERE IT'S AT for quotes.

Sometimes in life we have to remove ourselves from everything familiar in order to become familiar with ourselves. My Danish ancestors arrived in Utah in the mid-1800s to start over; in 2010, I did the same. But, like, with a lot less hardship and fewer dangerous voyages across the sea and open prairie.

Sitting in church one day in Salt Lake is where I was struck with the thought that I'd been living in two different worlds for years, not fully committing to either and thus always feeling torn. I made the decision to be all in, to humble myself and turn to Christ, to do the work, to seek the Lord's help in fixing myself rather than struggling in vain to do it on my own. 

It's where I taught a class of second-graders who were most mostly first-generation Americans, interpreting for their parents who worked multiple jobs to give their kids a better life than they had in Bosnia, South Sudan, Iraq, and Mexico.

This is the time that I was pescetarian for two years, annoying a handful of friends and family, but at the same time helping change my perspective on our consumption of the earth's resources. And becoming sick and tired of salmon after the first year.

I ran my first half-marathon here, finding a love for running that I never had in the four years I did cross-country, where my sister was a top varsity runner while I was a middling JV athlete, sometimes diverting a practice run to the convenience store where we'd buy La Rosa bars instead. (Always coconut.) I was less about cutting my times and more about increasing my socializing. When I became a coach years later, every time an overly-chatty swimmer would sit out a drill at the other end of the lane because their shoulder hurt (LIAR!), I'd feel pangs of regret for the times I'd pulled the same nonsense on my own coaches. Sorry, Coach Jones. I'm the worst.

Utah is where I worked at Communal, where I met some of my best friends and all-around greatest people in the world, and became a sucker for the farm-to-table movement. Alice Waters forever.

It was at a BYU football game that I saw AJ again. We had been set up by our siblings, who'd been going out at the time, six months previous; first date at a Mexican restaurant and second on Valentine's Day, eating pizza and watching Election. It didn't take the first time around-I talked a lot about Ron Paul and he wouldn't stop with Chris Brown. I also ordered the shrimp quesadilla (pescetarian-see above), "the most expensive thing on the menu" (it was $12, slow your roll), which took AJ aback. The fact that this was our first date did not stop him from finishing my leftovers. 

Since 2010, I've changed my driver's license from CA to UT to VA. Come May 30th, we'll be residing in New York City for the summer while AJ interns in Midtown Manhattan. (Side note: when we found out we'd be in NYC a couple months ago, it was then that I decided my baseball loyalties would be with the Mets. So stop your "bandwagon" accusations now. Besides, I'll always bleed blue for the Dodgers. I was watching Kirk Gibson, Fernando Valenzuela, and Orel Hershiser with my dad BACK IN THE DAY. That 1988 fist pump. Relive it here.) So many choices, big and small, have brought me to where I am today, all the while preparing me for life's next great hurdle. Because with every new experience, good or bad, there are lessons to be learned and growing pains to be had. 

I know it's just a song. But hearing her words, and her voice, so much of the past five years came back to me. It has been said that "great art takes us to a place where we realize the need for another kind of language to capture the deepest realities." (The Crucible of Doubt: Reflections on the Quest for Faith, Terryl and Fiona Givens. If you are looking to explore and expand your relationship with God and one another, I IMPLORE you to read this book.) This is the art Adele gives me.