I had to pull my car over. The blackened trees around me seemed to be growing taller. Spinning. More dead. My vision started to swim and I knew it was finally hitting me. This place would never be the same again. Of course, neither would I.

I was driving to meet a close friend halfway up Elbow Coulee, a road that connects Twisp River Road to Twin Lakes in the small valley in Washington where I lived for the first 15 years of my life.

It was early morning, the sun just barely kissing the Cascades. I had tried my best to look nice for the memorial later that afternoon. Not knowing whether I should dress up in all black or just be casual. I hadn’t been to one of these in a long time.

On the hill in front of me, a quick movement caught my eye. A massive tree split in two and fell forward. You could see the embers on its trunk where it had caved, still red from the fire.

I felt like that tree. Ready to buckle with the weight of the last two years that I hadn’t let myself feel until this moment. Everything had changed so much in those two years.

I’d left the comfort of small-town Twisp, Washington – my hometown, the lifeblood of everything I knew – and moved to Portland with my mom.

I’d made new connections and done a few internships and discovered my love of journalism and urban planning and social justice. In this new space, I’d finally come to terms with not being straight, but still didn’t feel safe enough to let the rest of the world in on the secret.

I’d grown outside of the person I used to be and was struggling to hold onto her at the same time.

And now, I’d watched the valley I loved so dearly get eaten alive by wildfires. More than 227,000 acres. At least 50 homes. Three people dead. It all felt surreal. Until now.

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I stared at the smoldering landscape. This is where I used to have sledding parties and drink hot cocoa when I was 10. This is where I used to make the 10-mile bike ride to school at 6 a.m. This is where my friend Tommy died fighting the fire.

I wiped the river of tears from my eyes and turned on the car. Two minutes later, I saw my friend walking down the road toward me. I got out and we hugged for a long moment in silence.

We started up the steep hill and reached the burnt plateau, scanning the 360-degree view around us. We fought back tears and marveled at the force of the destruction all in the same minute. I had so many memories in those scorched mountains. Images flooded my body and left as quickly as they’d come.

We talked about college plans for me, next-step ideas for her, checking our dreams with reality and then dreaming some more.

She mentioned how much I’d changed in the years I’d been away, how proud she was of me.

I mumbled a thank you and an ‘I just can’t believe he’s dead, can you?’ Her eyes told me no and I said, ‘It’s good to be home.’

Home. For so long, my biggest worry in moving away was that I’d lose the deep connection with the place I’d willingly left. That somehow it would fizzle out of me and I’d never get it back.

But sitting in the gym of my old high school later that day, looking out into the crowd of people I knew so well who had all come together to celebrate the life of the 20-year-old man I had grown up alongside, who gave his life on the road from where I had just come, I knew that this would never be the case.

It all made sense in one moment.

This community had watched me morph from a young girl into a young woman; they knew everything about me yet nothing at all.

And in this in-between space of knowing nothing and everything, I knew two things: that I had somehow grown beyond this place that made me who I am; and that in the past two years, I’d forged a path for myself that I couldn’t have made if I had stayed.

But I also knew this was home. That I belonged here and that the connection I had always been so scared of losing would never really leave me.

This is something Tommy always knew. He always was a bit ahead of the game. I guess in passing, he decided to help me catch up.

Looking back on this day two months later, I realize that I’m grateful for Tommy and what his passing left behind for all who knew him.

Because now I know that no matter what I do or who I meet or how far I travel, I will always carry home inside me. And in doing so, I will always be home.

My mom used to say, “Change is all there is.” I would roll my eyes and tune her out. Really, I was just afraid.

Now, as I head into the thick of my senior year and gear up to go away to college, change is inevitable. But I am no longer afraid.

Instead, I crave it. I’m ready to grow even further beyond who I have become. And that means leaving behind what I know and figuring out what’s next. ◊