BORIS AND SERGEI

I love Idaho with all my heart. Those who know me know this. Yet, it's been weird the past few times coming home. I've wanted to, it just has felt...different. More so than it did freshman year. Last year, coming home for break was fabulous, but last year was rough. After England, it just kinda was, but then again, it was summer, and I had yet to spend a summer not in Twin Falls.

The drive home always seems to get shorter and shorter. I love that drive. Usually the last hour from right before Burley until I get home takes ages, but it didn't this time. I found out that I got my job up at the Humanities Reference Desk in the HBLL somewhere around Snowville though, so pretty sure that sped up the last two hours of the drive.

As soon as I got home, I rushed out the door to Becca's choir concert for...Robert Stuart MIDDLE SCHOOL? Yeah. My semi-beloved junior high (because, really, anyone who loved junior high is CRAZY) is now a middle school. Oh what a trap of hormones. Listening to a choir of 6th and 7th graders, where all the boy's voices hadn't changed and where my sister was the tallest one, made me miss REAL choir though. And Marc, because his mom was accompanying. Sigh. Then we went to Matt's voice recital. Tess was accompanying lots of pieces and I saw Lori and right as we walked in Teagan had just finished singing. So I kind of got to see the Savages, but since we came late and they left early...not so much. I MISS THEM. I miss being part of their family, almost. And I miss Justine and I miss my best friend and just talking with him all the time and just being Garin's best friend. During the whole recital, the only thing I could think of was 3 years ago in that same Methodist church downtown sitting with his family because mine couldn't come after having gone Christmas shopping with him. It was snowy and icy and the roads (espcially Pole Line) were terrible and my feet were so cold, and I was sick and so me singing Ave Maria didn't really work out until the second verse, but we just sat and doodled on the program together and "talked" aka wrote conversations on the program during the recital.

That is the Twin Falls I miss. The Twin Falls with one high school, and being part of two fantastic choirs, and fun nights with my friends. With the guys on all missions and everyone scattered around and short times at home, that doesn't really happen anymore. I come home to see my family, and so it is home, because I'm living in my home, but Provo is home too. In fact, Provo is probably more home than Twin now. I still love Twin. Seeing the temple from across the canyon or anywhere in town still sends shivers up my spine. My house is still home. The canyon still makes me smile. But driving around town just doesn't feel right anymore. I just don't belong here.

I drive past the high school and think "Hey, I used to go there. I miss AP English and choir" but at the same time...it's not my school anymore. I drive past all these spots and think "Oh, that was the one place this happened" but more often than not I think, "Whoa! Where did that go?" Or "Since when has that been there?" Driving past Wal-Mart and Walgreen's and the new high school and hospital there along Pole Line-Washington area still freaks me out. The light on Falls at the entrance to CSI always throws me for a loop. Now Pole Line up to the entrance to my complex is closed, and in a year or two even that won't be the same. They're taking my home town and turning it into somewhere I don't really know. I guess I should understand--I've changed so much in the past 3 years. It is only reasonable that Twin should have changed too. But still...the Twin of now is not the Twin I grew up in, that I left for college from. It's not really my home, even though it's my home town. The only thing that makes it home is my family.

But one thing tonight made me feel like Twin Falls was actually home. I met Lisa, Sergei, my old roomie and wonderful friend, whatever you want to call her, at Shari's. It was quick. She's crazy busy and everything, but we needed to see each other, because she's been in London-not-Provo for the past 4 months and I'm jealous because every day a part of me just yearns for London slash England slash the UK in general. Anyway. But sitting there at Shari's, a place where I spent many nights--after Jive things with people like Risa and Tysh, with Lindsey and Kristine once, a couple times with Garin, with Camille and Brittany and Alli and Lindsey after prom, with Nicole and Jill and Garin. (I guess that's what happens when it's the only place open that late). I sat there, with one of my best friends from high school and after, in one of the places that I think of when I think of Twin. It was like a bridge. It was a synthesis (JOHN BENNION WORD) of my high school self and my new self. I don't know if that makes sense. But sitting in that booth with Lisa, even though so much has happened and changed both inside and around us in the past couple years and we were talking about college and England and things we could never have imagined a couple years ago...it was like Twin Falls was Twin Falls again.

That doesn't really make sense. And it probably sounds like I don't like Twin anymore. Which isn't true. I love it and it will always be home. But at the same time, it just isn't the same, it's not how I always think of Twin. I mean, most of my siblings won't go to the same high school I did. They won't have my same teachers, won't remember a Twin Falls before Wal-Mart and before the Pole Line road construction and before the temple and before all these changes. And not that all of them have been bad. It's just...weird.

And I realized that my post title doesn't have much to do with my post. Lisa=Sergei. Rachel=Boris. We are Russian Hitmen. And that did come up. And I am soooooo grateful that I got to see that wonderful lady. I just kind of got carried away with the feeling that I don't really belong in Twin Falls anymore. BUT. Boris + Sergei = feeling like Twin is still home.

The end.