Ikea is my happy place

Everyone has a happy place. For some it might be a park they go to to unwind and "connect" with nature. Maybe it's your car on a ride after a long day at work or maybe even a book you just can't help reading over and over again.
For me, it's Ikea. Ikea and I go way back, 2008 back. My first experience was in Torino, Italy and I finally got to go to what I later refer to as bliss. It was a p-day on my mission and we spent the day just trying to find the store and when we did, I felt like I had arrived...arrived in paradise! The showrooms were divine, the creativity astounding and honestly, I about died in pleasure with the food from the cafeteria. I was in heaven. All the stress, anxiety and unfamiliarity of the mission melted away as I browsed through aisle after aisle of Ikea goodness.
I think I only ended up buying two or three things, but the impression of the moment lasted with me for years after. I kept the magazine I got there for the rest of my mission and when I was in Milano, sick and miserable, I would pull it out just to relive the moment of joy. That and the Ensign with a talk from Sheri Dew were my escapes :).
Luckily, now I live in Salt Lake City with an Ikea mere minutes from my house. So when I have a particularly rough day, you know where to find me...bedroom and kitchen sections of the Draper Ikea, or maybe munching on lingonberries and mashed potatoes.

My Saturday mornings

Good morning Salt Lake City! This is how I eat breakfast on a Saturday: Pancakes, royally sanctioned syrup important from Britain, The New York Times on my laptop and a goblet of water all outside on my porch. Life is so good.
Up next: birthday gift shopping for a hipster....who knows how that will go.

And that's when I realized that part of life was over...

I served a mission in Milan, Italy with some of the finest young men and women this world has to offer. I loved my mission and will attest that it was the best decision I have ever made. I always thought that the people I served with would remain my closest confidants after the mission. But tonight, I realized that like all things, the past remains in the past and you move on. This is unfortunate but it's the truth.
I went to a party where I knew the former missionaries, some married, some not, some in school, some working and really the initial 2 minutes were phenomenal! Hugging, laughing, reminiscing and then after a while, we ran out of things to say. The questions started like "so, what are you doing now?" "what's um, what's new?" "do you hear from ... anymore?" and then usually the conversation faded off into nothing and we moved on to the next person to repeat the sad cycle.
What can we do? We shared some of the most difficult, most excruciating, most rewarding and incredible experiences that people can share and then one day it's all over and we are expected to return to the person we were before. To life the life we lived before and eventually stop talking about our missions except in very specific moments. We are called weird and are expected to become "normal" again. Its rough really and for me I felt torn in half. I wanted to stay who I had become yet feared to be cut off and classified as someone "stuck in the mission". So now, here I am. A year and 3 months later and I suppose I'm normal, maye not, but definitely still in a very fluid stage of "becoming". That's what I call it anyway. I guess that's just how things go. I hope that those who were there tonight are doing well and adjusting. They seem to be. And while yeah, we never are going to be close like before, I'd like to think that in the future we can still count on each other. If you can't tell, I miss the mission like crazy these days. It's always worse in the summer. I would give anything to go back :(