ACCORDING TO ZAC

What is it about hearing a song or going somewhere from the past that activates this really distinct feeling I can barely explain? It's happy, but a little sad too. It's fun, but does have a sharp edge on it. “Sweet Disposition” by Temper Trap gets me feeling that way, and I'm right back in it after finding  this cover  of that song this week. That song takes me to really clear time of my life where I was really flying, right around my sophomore year of college. There were some growing pains then too, but by and large everything was really clicking; my ward was great, I was coming into my own spiritually, enjoying my major, and felt deep satisfaction in the relationships in my life. Back in 2020, as we were still in the early days of the pandemic and social distancing, I wrote about trying to reckon with the nostalgia of the past without overlooking the goodness of the present, which seems very akin to what I'm feeling now. I described it then as a combination of “long...

It’s so interesting how memories will surface after being tucked away so long, and how they can almost knock you over. That happened to me last week while I was reading a book called Warlight (3 out of 5 stars, FYI). There was a scene about packing a trunk and an impending separation between parent and child that was probably incredibly typical of WWII-era Britain. But what it jogged in my brain was packing for my mission almost 10 years ago. In the three months between opening my mission call and leaving for the MTC, everything that we bought for my time away got piled onto the bed in our guest bedroom. Periodically my mom and I would go in there and count out how many shirts I had, check the list again to see what else I might need, etc. Then the day before we flew out, we stacked it all on the living room floor, alongside the two big suitcases I would be packing my life in for the next two years. As I rushed around that day, packing somehow got away from me. And when I say “someho...

The pickings were slim and the trees unimpressive, and yet I was incredibly happy to be looking over the “fresh cut” pines in the Lowe’s parking lot one night earlier this week. I got it in my head somehow that this year I’ll have a real Christmas tree instead of putting up the hand-me-down artificial one I’ve been using. My fake tree has been perfect for my stage of life: it’s the right size, the right price ( free ), and most of the lights work most of the time. The presents look nice underneath it. By all accounts, it works. But the smell of the real trees in the open-walled tent that night transformed my wish for a real tree from a whimsical one-off into something much more tender. I wasn’t prepared for how the scent of the pines would conjure up the memories of searching for the right tree as a family. Every year until I was about 20 years old, we would make the pilgrimage to various Christmas tree lots to find the tree . We always bought a noble fir, the tallest one that could fi...

I had a weird confluence of different eras of my life today that brought me both longing and joy. ERA I:  I was really fortunate to spend my entire life in one place until my mission. While that might have robbed me of some of the things kids learn as they relocate—resilience, an ability to make friends in new situations, etc.—it also provided me with a lot of stability that fostered the development of long term relationships that I still treasure to this day. I feel immense tenderness towards my hometown and the people I associate with Tucson by virtue of having so much personal history with that place/them. Tucson is so pretty. As I revisited old blog posts and spent a long time thinking about things I’ve experienced today, I couldn’t help but feel very far removed from that part of my life. I looked at photos of my pre-mission life and felt some embarrassment at who I was then (who wasn’t periodically very awkward in their young adulthood?), but also some envy for the ...

When I was teaching a lesson in church once in the last couple of years, someone remarked that he was trying to be grateful for gratitude's sake, and not just in juxtaposition to the things that he saw other people experiencing. I've long thought about that notion and tried to incorporate it into my life. It's true that comparison puts some things into perspective, in terms of how fortunate we might be. But it also creates unhelpful and unhealthy imbalances in the way we envision our own suffering, our own accomplishments, and our own worth. I'm learning to tread carefully on the comparison thing. The last several weeks have been unusual, to say the least. As we continue to practice social distancing, I can't help but feel disconnected and long for "normal" life to return. I miss seeing people whenever I wanted. I miss the time that I had a little less dread (although I'd hardly count myself as germaphobic, nor hypochondriacal, so fortunately my drea...

(Context: my wonderful mother passed away in early November 2014 from cancer. The diagnosis a year previously had been shocking, but her decline was not. That has been one of many sources of great emotion over the last year. This entry will be about coping with the loss of her, but it could very well be applied to the setbacks we face in life, whether self-inflicted or otherwise.) Life is such a crazy thing. The range of emotions I have felt in the last year or so would take days to explain completely, and the emotions I've felt in the last few days alone have had me up and down. Fortunately enough, I started going through old journal entries this afternoon and I found one that was really encouraging. Last March I had just finished reading a silly book called Allegiant . There were a lot of things I didn't like about the book, but if there was anything redeeming at all about the hundreds of pages I read it was the core message delivered at the very end: "We can be...

I told you all once about how I went to Kentucky . I told you about how my entire life was changed because of those two years that I dedicated to serving others. I can't believe that it has been (almost) 9 months since I returned home from that remarkable adventure. Life has presented me with challenges, but lots and lots of blessings, too. Not a day goes by that I don't think about my friends in Kentucky or something that I experienced there, but today the reality of that time of my life being over was so potent. Today I decided to clean out my closet. I removed tons of white shirts from hangers -- shirts that I wore everyday for two years as I represented Jesus Christ as a missionary. I cried thinking about how I will never have the chance to live that again, and what an intense, life altering time that was for me. My heart was full of thanks for the special blessings God saw fit to grant me -- the blessing of sending me to Kentucky, where he knew I needed those people as m...

I had a ca-razy bit of a nostalgic flashback the other day. It was kinda sad since life has taken us away from each other, but I smiled A LOT when I thought about all of the fun times. Here's to us. :) P.S. Ignore Mike in the Iron Man 2 picture. Hahaha

You know those moments when you remember something that was super awesome and can't help but smile? Those are pretty much my favorite.