Only The Curious

I finally got the videos and pictures from my move and first week in town up. The videos are in two parts; the first is from the actual drive out and the second is from the sightseeing Leah and I did the first weekend I was here. Enjoy!

Moving out to Colorado:

Sightseeing in Colorado:

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I’ve officially been in Colorado for a week. It’s beautiful, and I’ve enjoyed driving around, trying to get a feel for where everything is and what all is here. Yet somehow I thought it would feel more radically different than it does. Really, it just feels like my life,  with fewer commitments and better scenery. As excited as I am to have finally moved, the momentum seems to have slowed. I’m finally here! Now what?

One of my mother’s favorite adages is “wherever you go, you take yourself with you.” The external things changing doesn’t make the internal things change; really, it works the other way around. Problems, habits, ways of thinking and doing things don’t just shift overnight. These are things we have to do deliberately, from the inside out. And usually, no matter where we are or who we’re around, we’ll end up making a lot of the same choices time and time again.

Still, part of the point of moving was to instigate change. To shed the parts of me or my lifestyle that weren’t serving me anymore, and to expand into trying/being/doing new things. So I’m trying to be conscientious about every commitment I make, thinking “is this still how I want to do things? Is there a reason I want to do it this way instead of trying another way? How could it be done another way? What would it feel like if it were?”

I do want things to be exciting and new and different, and yet, I really liked my life in Madison, so a lot of the choices I make may be pretty much the same.  Of course, it’s also rather early in this whole process, and because I’ve been focusing on finding work and trying not to spend money, I haven’t really gotten out and experienced a lot of my new surroundings yet, either. Even the ones I have gotten out to are the ones I know and have seen before, and all the people I’ve been seeing are the ones I already know. In fact, today will be the first day I go out and meet some new folks.

I’m sure this will be like so many things – finding a balance of old and new, exciting and different alongside that which is comforting and reminds me of home. I look forward to exploring it and continuing to share the journey.

Speaking of which, pictures and video from my first week will be up soon. They’re all edited, I just need to get them posted!

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I write this post from a point of equilibrium – halfway between things. We’re almost exactly half of the way from Madison to Boulder, in Lincoln, NE where some friends have been so generous as to put Leah and I up for the night. So often our outside circumstances reflect our inner ones, and at the moment I’m feeling very neutral.

Leaving was hard. I knew I’d be sad, but I expected it to be more bittersweet than melancholy. I cried a lot, especially when watching my mother and then Ian shrink in my rearview mirror. The weight of those emotions only started to lift about 6 hours into the trip, as we watched the spectacular light show that the thunderstorms on the horizon put on for us. When you see something that massive and powerful and beautiful, you are reminded that your own life is but one small piece of so much more.

I had pictured my departure in my head like a scene from a movie – my closest friends and family in the driveway, all waving goodbye as I pulled away, music blaring, thrilled for my grand adventure. While I knew this wasn’t quite realistic – it was a workday, after all – I wasn’t quite prepared for the drawn out process of saying goodbye to people individually and doing so hours and hours before my departure. Many people I didn’t even get to say a proper goodbye to; last time I saw them I didn’t realize I wouldn’t be seeing them again. Pulling away from Ian’s apartment with him standing alone in the parking lot, waving until after I was out of sight was just painful and sad. Not the celebrated exit I had mentally prepared myself for.

When we finally left Madison, it was nearly 3 p.m., hours later than I’d planned. It was overcast and threatening rain, and the last place I set foot in Wisconsin was at the Supertarget, where we bought a cooler bag and a bottle of wine for our overnight hosts. It was weird. But Leah did take some video which made it feel more official and important.

And then we just started driving West. Infrequent downpours slowed us throughout Eastern Iowa; once it was so dense we had to pull over and wait it out. We listened to “The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” and noted funny names (Middle Raccoon and North Skunk rivers) and pulled out the videocamera each time we hit some kind of landmark. At 9:00 p.m. we were hungry and desperately hoping to find a place that would still serve us food; we nearly fell to our knees and bowed down in the parking lot of a Subway somewhere East of Council Bluffs.

Though I was exhausted last night, I can’t say I slept soundly. It’s always odd being in a place with unfamiliar sounds and smells, and that combined with anxiety and excitement pulled me in and out of waking consciousness all night. I am finally starting to feel excited this morning though. We’ll be in Colorado TODAY! It feels so surreal. But I suppose that’s how it is when you’re finally doing something you’ve talked about for so long, you weren’t even sure you believed yourself anymore.

As I move more into wakefulness this morning, the anxiety lingers and sadness about everyone I’m leaving behind still colors my thoughts, but joy and excitement are beginning to flood in.

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I’m moving to Colorado.
The following is a re-post from my other blog about my upcoming move to Colorado, originally posted on 5/27/09.

Anyone who has known me at any point over the last 12 years has heard me say this about a bajillion times. But this time, I mean it. For reals.

I’m moving to Colorado in August.

The first question everyone I tell about my move asks me is: “what are you going to do in Colorado?” It is, after all, the most sensible and polite question to ask.

I usually respond with a blank look while my internal monologue does the following: “I have no idea. I have no idea what I am going to do in Colorado. What am I going to do? What am I going to say to this person? Quick brain, come up with SOMETHING!” Unfortunately, I think my blank look comes across as “why are you asking me such a stupid question?” Which I feel bad about, because I don’t want to make people feel bad for asking me questions, even if they are stupid. Really it’s more that because I don’t have a good answer for the question, I hate it when people ask that. Which they do. Every time.

So now my response, accompanied by said blank stare, is “um, live there.”

Which, of course, gets followed up by more questions I don’t really have answers to:

“Well do you have a job lined up or anything?”

Most sensible people do not pick up and move across the country if it’s not for a job or a great love or family. I am leaving my family and my great love (more about that in a minute) and I don’t have a job lined up; I don’t even know what kind of job I want.

Part of me is really hoping to find a full-time job with an innovative company where I can make a decent paycheck and have health insurance and work with people and occasionally do interesting, creative things. The other part of me wants to “wing it” as a freelancer or start my own business as an event planner, so that I can still travel all the time, because now I will have 3 cities I want to visit all of the time instead of one. But that’s a terrible idea, because Boulder is way more expensive than Madison and I’m not making my living as a freelancer now.

So I’ve settled on setting an intention for whatever would be best for me to show up. I’m going to go out there and just see what happens. I can always serve coffee or do massages if I need to stretch my savings until Mr. Right in job form comes along.

Now befuddled at my apparently random decision making process, the person asks “so why are you going to Colorado?”

I grew up in Colorado, and I decided the day I left that someday I’d go back. So it’s just this ingrained psychological thing about returning home, even though Madison feels way more like home at this point. In some ways, I need to go just so I can cross it off my “life list” and get on to whatever I want to do next.

But the important part isn’t that I’m going to Colorado, it’s that I’m going. The best reasons I can give are that I am moving because I am 27 and not married and have no real reason not to.

I will concede that I have plenty of reasons to stay. My family’s here. Ian’s here. Madison is a fabulous place to live. I have a lot of friends I really care about, and my local professional network is pretty solid. I often wish I could just be happy to stay here and get married and start my own business. It would be great.

But as Ian said once, staying would slowly kill me from the inside. I need to go do this just because I’ve always wanted to, and I would always wonder what would’ve happened if I’d done it. And I do not want to be one of those senior citizens who says “oh I wish I’d done that when I was your age, but then I got married…”

Speaking of marriage, the last question they ask is “So is Ian going with you?”

I am always caught off-guard by this one, just because I’m surprised at how many people know that I’m in a relationship, that it’s a serious relationship, and that they care about my business that much. And I know that they care, because they are usually devastated when I say “no.”

This is followed up by a lengthy explanation about how Ian’s not coming with me because I have always wanted to just go and strike it out on my own and he loves me enough not to deprive me of that. More to the point, he and I have been together for two years and we’re really happy and we’ve talked about getting married and while everyone else in the world thinks this is exactly why I should plant myself here and marry him, I think that means it’s the perfect time for us to be apart for a bit. I don’t want to get married because I happened to be in a good relationship around the time that most people get married. I want to get married because I go to Colorado and I date other people and I realize I can’t possibly live without him.

Or its possible that I get out there and realize I can live without him and then I will have avoided marrying someone I’m later going to leave because I’m still wondering what would’ve happened if I’d gone to Colorado and if I was supposed to meet someone there instead.

You know, pretending there’s “the one” and that romance is fated and all that stuff that I don’t really belive in but romanticize anyway.

But back to the point:  I’m moving to Colorado. In August. To live there. No, I don’t have a job lined up, and I don’t know what kind of job I’m looking for, if any. Ian is not coming with me. Yes, I will miss you all. I promise to visit. And yes, you better come visit me because I will be living in the land of awesome.

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