Only The Curious

I’ve been in Colorado for a year as of last Friday. I meant to post then, but sometimes life gets in the way. The year went by fast, of course, and yet I went through so many different evolutions it seems impossible for all of that to have been just 12 months.

I’m tempted to write a summary of the year, but that would probably be interesting to no one besides my mom and I. So I’ll just share some thoughts on the whole thing:

• I lost more than I expected to. I knew some friendships would grow distant, and others would all but disappear. What I wasn’t prepared for was having to rebuild my entire social and professional network. It was something I guess I took for granted back in Madison, but it was startling when I’d go to “email everyone in town that I know” to solicit work or offer my massage services and would have a list of less than 10 names in the email. And it’s taken a long time to get back to anywhere near the resources I had in Madison.

• One of the hardest parts of living in a new town is not knowing where to find things. I’m not talking about the general lost-ness of not knowing your way around (though that’s a pain in the ass without an iPhone, too.) It was when people would come to visit and I didn’t know where the good breakfast places were, or which bike shop to go to for cheap repairs, or where to find groceries they don’t carry at the mainstream stores. It takes awhile to develop that repertoire of knowledge, and that’s a slow process when you’re trying not to go out and spend money.

• I can live with much less than I thought I could. I left most of my belongings and all of my furniture in Madison. I haven’t replaced most of it; at the moment I basically own my clothes and accessories, toiletries, a bike, car, guitar, a few books, massage table, laptop, and a couple of tech things like an iPod and camera. That’s about it. All of my belongings (save for the car, obvs) can be fit into a smallish bedroom. And honestly, I don’t think I need a lot more. Except skis. Those would be handy. But, I digress. Point being that while I’m not a minimalist on the scale of Everett Bogue, I have been pleasantly surprised to find out how much simpler life is when you let go of stuff, (which may have been taken a step too far when I lost my camera and wallet this spring…) and how freeing it can be to no longer be defined by what you have, but more by what you do.

• There are some things that are truly unique to every city. I think about this a lot, though probably mostly in terms of ultimate frisbee. I loved the league I played in Madison, and haven’t found anything particularly similar here. When I’ve thought about what it would take to get one of the leagues here on par with MUFA, I realize there’s no way it could work the same. The community is just structured too differently. A lot of things in Denver are more challenging just because people are so much more spread out, and every activity involves a lot more drive time. That effects things more than I had expected it to.

• Change and freedom are awesome, but so is a little stability. As mentioned in a recent post, stability isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In a year of dramatic and relatively continuous change, I’ve found myself suddenly craving a place to be rooted, a space I can decorate any way I want, and familiarity of friends and surroundings. My tolerance for winging it turned out to be a little lower than I expected.

• I might not be so wanderlust-y as I expected. I no longer have any desire to move or live anywhere else ever again. This is probably me sticking my foot in my mouth for six months from now when I’m itching to live abroad, but I had been worried that I’d get here and be like “well, that’s checked off the list. Where to next?” I haven’t had an inkling of desire to move again. For all of the reasons listed above, I’d say moving was a much bigger deal than I expected it to be in some ways, and a much simpler one in others.

I’d like to say I have no regrets about my move, but I’d be lying. I’m still happy I did it, and wouldn’t take it back, but I do wish I’d done two things a little differently:

1. I would have saved more money to give myself a little bit more security. I ran out of money about a week before my first paycheck came, and then didn’t really build up a cushion before my next job change. I would’ve liked to have had more to spend when I first got here, and more security after I’d been here for awhile. For those of you thinking about relocating $3500 is not really enough money to move cross-country with. That is, unless you have no debt. Or a job lined up.
2. I would have handled my shifting relationships better. There are some people I hurt without meaning to in the midst of my “whee I live in a new place!” excitement. I wish I’d set better boundaries and been a little more conscientious when attempting to dive back into the wonderful world of dating. I’m sorry for being irresponsible with your feelings.

But two regrets isn’t so bad, and ultimately time will repair those mistakes. There were a lot of other things I’d like to have done differently in retrospect, but I think most of us can say that about significant portions of our lives. So I won’t call them regrets, just experiences that I have hopefully learned from.

And at the end of year one, I’m just starting to feel at home. I’m still thrilled with my move, glad I did it, and am gloriously happy despite a few challenges. I no longer feel that sense of holding back or waiting for change to do things that I used to.

All in all, it’s been a year of learning a lot about myself and how I want to live, and how to create and be in charge of my own life. I love Colorado, and feel like this was, indeed, the right choice. Thank you to everyone who supported me in leaving, arriving, and being here.

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A year ago today I did one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I packed two trash bags of clothes and shoes, my guitar, a suitcase, and a few odds and ends into my little Mazda, strapped my bike on the back, and headed West. As glorious and romantic as it was to finally move to Colorado – fulfilling a dream I’d had for 15 years – it meant leaving behind people and a place that I still to this day care about very deeply. And that was harder than I’d ever imagined it could be. I guess that’s why I had returned to Madison “for 6 months” to save money for my move. That was 6 years ago.

Whenever I had pictured my grand departure in my head, it looked something like this: early morning, all of my friends and my family standing around in my parents’ driveway. We would’ve been hanging out and drinking coffee, saying last goodbyes, joking, taking pictures. Then, at the appointed moment, I would climb into my stuffed car, turn on some great exciting song, open my sunroof, and shout a goodbye before pulling out of the driveway, at which point everyone would wave, running down the street, wishing me luck and bidding farewell. We’d take pictures and video out the window as I pulled away, grinning ear to ear at the success of finally GOING.

Yeah, unsurprisingly, it wasn’t like that at all.

Which is not to say there weren’t plenty of sentimental goodbyes – I think I gained 15 pounds last summer going out “for one last beer” or brunch or coffee with people. I had a big goodbye party two days before I left, and a great dinner with my folks the night before. But the actual leaving day? Well, it was the middle of the week and everyone was at work. I was still cramming things in my car around noon.

The worst part was leaving Ian. That was, in fact, a very movie-esque moment, pulling away and watching him grow smaller and smaller in my rearview mirror. I got barely a block out of sight before I had to pull over because I was sobbing so hard. It was so strange to hug someone and say goodbye just like I had every morning for two years, only knowing this time I wouldn’t be back for months, and when I was, that things would inevitably be different. It just felt wrong. And terribly, terribly sad.

I can’t really explain in this moment why he didn’t come along, or why I didn’t decide to stay for him. Suffice it to say that Colorado was my dream and not his, and he had known from probably our first date on that I was going to go someday. He supported it, even though it meant us being apart, potentially permanently. There are probably dozens of posts that could be written about that process and that relationship, but we’ll save those for another day. In the end I am grateful to Ian for not only being supportive but encouraging; I can’t imagine anything that demonstrates love more than literally letting someone go, not knowing if they would ever come back.

{Kim, that last bit applies to you too. Thank you both for being awesome, amazing friends to me even as I was planning my departure and making a mess of your apartment. I still have in my wallet the goodbye note you left me on the table that morning }

Once I regained enough composure to drive another half mile, I picked up my wonderful friend Leah, who had volunteered to help me drive out to Colorado and then flew back alone. I remember the night she offered to come

along, and am still grateful for her support. I don’t know if I could have gotten here in one piece without her.

Then Leah and I went on to my mom’s house for another sad and anticlimactic goodbye. Then we stopped at Target. If you watch the videos from the move, the first one basically starts with me at Target. That was the only time I really considered chickening out. Here I’d been crying and upset for three hours and I wasn’t even actually out of Madison yet. That will definitely leave you wondering if you’re doing the right thing, and at that moment, it seemed so easy to just turn around and go back to mom’s house.

But I knew I’d regret it forever if I didn’t go. Besides, I’d already done the hard part – I’d said goodbye. I’d cried. It would only get easier from here on out. No reason to go through that again, or worse, make it all for naught.

Leah offered to start off the driving, seeing as how I was puffy faced and still intermittently crying. But I insisted that I had to be in the driver’s seat at least until the border. So we got in the car, turned on an awesome, great, departure song, and headed West.

…
reflections on my first year here to come tomorrow
…

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I had nothing on my schedule today. NOTHING. No work, no events, no hanging out with friends. I don’t even have things in mind that I might do. Tuesday, August 17th, 2010 was a blank slate for me. I think it’s the emptiest day I’ve had since… the last summer vacation I had when I didn’t have a job. So like, 8th grade.

It’s weird. Usually I would try to fill a day like this. Seeing my empty calendar would normally inspire one of two feelings in me: panic at the nothingness and lack of people-interaction, or a manic-like need to get as much done as humanly possible in my empty time. Or, at least, I would normally try to take advantage – go on a big hike, go to the museum, do things I wouldn’t normally do during the week because I don’t have time.

But I didn’t. I spent 5 hours meticulously cleaning the house this morning, and now I’ve been writing and doing internet-y things all afternoon. I’m probably going to go work out after I finish this post. Then I might make dinner. Exciting stuff.

Part of me feels like I totally wasted a good day. A good SUMMER day at that. I feel guilty. Like it’s a bad thing that I didn’t go lie in the sun and read, or go see something new, or get a ton of freelance work done. I think because I have so often used housework as procrastination that when I get down to just doing some chores that need doing I still feel like I’m using that as an excuse for not working.

Maybe I am. But, then, I find a cluttered house really distracting. I struggle to sit down and focus when everything around me as a mess. Dealing with that doesn’t count as procrastination, does it? What about if it takes up half of a beautiful day?

I should add here that housecleaning, like exercising, is no quick task for me. It’s one of the few realms where my perfectionist tendencies are still allowed free reign. In the process of folding my clothes and putting them away, I’ll go through my closet and organize my clothes by type and then color. And then I’ll make sure all of my shirts are facing the same way. This morning I scrubbed the coffee grounds out of the grout in the kitchen, and reorganized the cabinets for maximum efficiency. Poor Karl won’t be able to find his cereal tomorrow. Oh, I re-arranged the contents of the freezer, too, so that all of the meat is in one part, the pizzas and breads in another, and frozen veggies in a third. They each have their own place. And now there’s more room in there. And nothing falls out when you open it.

Okay, so maybe I’m a little neurotic about keeping my environment tidy. I would love it if my house were always perfectly clean and organized, so I could always find things, entertain at the drop of a hat, and never feel like I need to spend an entire day cleaning instead of doing things that earn me money. Or are fun.

But being that level of tidy isn’t really in my nature. So I let it go until it stresses me out. Then I have a freakout day and go nuts getting it all cleaned again. Rinse, repeat.

According to the MBTI, we flip to the opposite of our preference when we get stressed out. So I guess, being an ENFP, that it makes sense. The P part of me is too busy having fun and winging it to worry about cleaning. But then it stresses me out and I flip to uber J and you find me bleaching the kitchen counters or scrubbing things with a toothbrush at 2am.

Speaking of, I’m pretty sure the putty is dry enough for me to go sand down the walls in the bathroom…

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