Every time I drive into Ogden, it feels like coming home. It's my college city, the one in which I lived on my own for the first time. The city where I met lost a high school best friend, and met my future husband. It's where I adopted my first dog, bought my first house, had my first grown-up job. It's where I really fell in love with yoga, and became a mother. Leaving was so sudden, due to Kevin accepting a job offer and needing to relocate. I had just said to a friend a couple of weeks prior that I didn't see any reason we'd ever move away from Ogden.
I often dream I live there, and that I'm still at Weber State. I spent 7 years with that University and those experiences stick with me to this day. I know I'm seeing things through rose-colored glasses all these years later, but the decade I spent in Ogden was a happy one overall. I learned a lot about myself and my depression in that time, and what I need to do to manage it best.
When I have the chance to return to Ogden, I feel a tug to stay a while. To think of ways we can move north again and not give up some of the opportunities we have in Salt Lake. I imagine being able to take Lincoln to the Treehouse Museum each week like I did when Aspen was his age. I imagine walking the same parkway with him that I walked with Aspen, and being closer to Pineview and Taylor Grove. I imagine Kevin and I spending time with the circle of friends we left behind up there, and him having an opportunity to do something other than just work all the time.
Ogden gets a bad rep, and I know people are always saying when there's a murder in the news it's either in West Valley or Ogden. And yes, it's kind of true, but that doesn't mean the whole city is a mess. The development in downtown is amazing, and it surprises me and Kevin every time we go. The access to recreational opportunities is mind-boggling, ranging from hiking to skiing to paddle boarding and boating.
I can't help wondering if Kev and I will end up there again.
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