Farewell, Denver.

Here it is. My last night in Denver. I’m sitting here drinking a beer that I brought back from Asheville and reminiscing about all the wonderful places I’ve lived.  Now I can add the city of Denver to the list. 

It’s a nice place, Denver. It’s not for me, but it’s a nice place. I did enjoy the beer and the food in all of its endless possibilities, but otherwise I’m not sure I was using this city to it’s fullest potential. I’m still not a city person.

My anniversary in Denver was just 3 days ago and I move tomorrow.  This move is especially exciting because I am moving in with my man.  Perhaps even THE man, I believe.  He’s got a cute little place in South Boulder that will be perfect for two people in love and a dog.  It’s weird to think that this is my last night of living on my own - potentially forever. 

For a lot of obvious reasons this move feels extremely different. For starters I am only moving 35 minutes away.  There are no goodbyes necessary, in fact, most people don’t even know that I’m moving and probably don’t care. I’m just down the road. I don’t need to eat all my perishable food. I don’t have any bills to notify. My lease is still active until the end of the month so if I don’t get all my things moved tomorrow - no problem. And to top it all off I’m moving in with the greatest man ever, so there is really very little stress involved with this move. Which is great. However, that stress is what usually motivates me to get off my ass and pack... perhaps the panic will set in in the morning.

Can we just appreciate for a moment that I will be LIVING with a BOY tomorrow?? That, beyond the simple act of moving, is what really throws me off. The emotions I’m feeling are hard to capture.  It’s certainly not fear.  I’m really quite excited about this. He’s my favorite person ever and now I get to see his face every single day. I am perhaps a little nervous.  I really don’t want to mess this relationship up, but like I’ve said a million times, I’d rather know now then 10 years down the road. I am definitely feeling a lot of anticipation and curiosity. This is completely unknown to me. I know how to move. I know how to settle into a new town. I even know how to move in with a new roommate. But moving in with a romantic partner?  Totally new to me. Everything will be shared space. There will be a lot of togetherness.  A lot of compromise. A lot of growing pains as we learn how to do this together. But overall I expect it to be a lot of fun.  

So there is it. Farewell, Denver. I’m sleeping diagonal tonight. Just because I can.

Vegas

Vegas.  What a vapid place. Completely superficial in every way, all the way down to the soil.  That soil can’t sustain anything except a cactus and yet it is supporting an entire city of a million or more.  But that’s the way we roll in America. We want a giant city where people can lose themselves and greed and sin so lets put it on the least sustainable place in the country. It makes sense when you stop and think about it. But besides all that I really had a nice time. 

Tom is out playing poker all summer (alll summer looong...) so I wanted to go visit him. It is so much fun being in love. I wish I could bottle this emotion and take a shot anytime I wanted a good healthy high. I won’t go on and on about how wonderful he is, although I easily could. We mostly just had a great time.  He showed me the sights and some of his favorite spots.  We had a nice balance of tourist attractions and chill evenings and outings with the guys. 

Despite not loving it I did go out a second time as well.  This time was meant specifically to drive home with him. We intended on camping, but neither of us were feeling well so instead we had a good ol’ fashion road trip.  First stop was Green River, Utah. Not much to it. It’s sole purpose, I’m pretty sure, is a truck stop.  We stayed at the Motel 6 and drank some really terrible water.  Utah is beautiful though.  We made use of their scenic overlook rest stops.  I’d like to explore more of Utah.  Next day is on to Colorado. We did the scenic drive through Colorado National Monument and then a spur-of-the-moment wine tasting in Palisade. Our stop for the night was in Glenwood Springs. What a nice town. We almost lived there so it was fun to daydream about the “what ifs”.  We got lost a lot of times and couldn’t figure out how to get to the hot springs. We made it 20 minutes before they closed and at $12 a ticket, 20 minutes is not worth it. We tried to play putt-putt golf, but they were closing in 10 minutes.  So instead we bought 50 cent ice cream cones from Burger King and giggled our way back to the hotel room.  Our last day we took the scenic route home from Glenwood through Aspen and over Independence Pass. It was so pretty! 

I had such a fun time with him. This trip had a lot of potential to suck since we both were feeling sick, but it turned out to be the highlight of my summer.  How wonderful love is.

27

I will enter my late twenties on Thursday.  27. 

As evidenced by my last post I really do love my life. Things are going mostly great and I have very little to complain about.  However, today, with the clouds rolling in and it being a little chilly outside, I've become a little melancholy. I'm tired of doing shit alone. I'm supposed to be okay with it.  I've carefully constructed this image of myself as an independent woman... but, I wondering if maybe that's all a sham. I'm tired of being alone. I've done it. It's been fun, but now I'm ready for some companionship. 

Today especially I’ve been working through the sludge of being an unattached woman in her late twenties.  Dealing with the profoundly annoying crescendoing of my biological clock.  Wanting now more then ever to be settled somewhere.  I take up space in Denver, but I don’t really live here yet.  I haven’t really invested much into my space. I find it hard.  When Ariel is already talking about a possible shift in the housing situation in August I don’t really want to invest too much time or energy into this space to make it feel more like home. I don’t want to build friendships or plant gardens or even hang pictures on the walls when I know that this is not actually my home. (which is great until I realize that I have no plans for my birthday and then I get sad and wish I had more friends). But overall, I just feel like I’m floating here, filling up space and waiting for my life to start.  I hate this.  I have been actively trying to avoid this feeling, but I can’t help it. The god damn biological clock has made it so the only way I will feel fulfilled is to raise a fucking family. The one thing I have absolutely no control over.  I could go ahead and buy a house. Start a garden. Get a dog. But then I would have a big, constant, empty reminder that my house, just like my life, is lacking. So instead I float. I wait. I occupy space and try to enjoy myself.  I’m doing all the things that people say I’m going to miss once I have a family - traveling, drinking, having lazy mornings. But I wonder if I will miss those things... 6 of one, half dozen of the other I’m guessing.  

Hopefully some day I will be lucky enough to find out for myself.

You know in life when things are going THAT good?  So good that you kind of don't want to tell people about it because you're afraid it will come off as bragging - or worse, that you might jinx it?  Jinx, by the way, is kind of a funny idea to me.  Like somehow admitting to the universe that you realize things are going really well and therefore the universe might remember that it hasn't given you shit to deal with in a long while and then it will all catch up to you in one sitting. Well, whatever, i feel like life is only 30% circumstance anyway- the rest is attitude.

Moral of the story is life really is THAT good right now. I am loving it and I am constantly in awe of how insanely lucky I am to be in my situation.  I agree that much of my situation I was born into, but you know, a lot of it - especially lately - I have created myself. I am proud of myself for that.

I started mentoring today.  This is silly, but I didn't really realize until today how big of a commitment this is. I decided to do this on a whim one night when I realized that it was probably the 8th night in a row that I was laying on my couch wasting time.  I wanted to volunteer and do something worthwhile - maybe better myself in the process. I googled volunteer opportunities and Denver Urban Scholars was on the list.  Not a very heroic story, but gut feelings late at night seem to really have a good (albeit life changing) effect on me. I am entering this girls life in a pretty serious way and I am going to get attached. I'm going to want to see this through and she's only in the 7th grade. It's exciting to have a real (respectable) reason to stay somewhere.  I realized that I haven't lived in the same house for more than 2 years since I was 18. Not that I could get too comfy where I am... I'm sure Ariel would like her basement back at some point, but maybe I'll actually want to stay in the area for a few years... for her and for a certain Him. He has only been in the picture for a few months, so perhaps a little soon to be including him in any long term plans, but I want to and thats way more than I can say for anyone else that I've dated in the past 6 years.

While I'm gloating, I'll just round it out by commenting on how my job is perfect for my current situation.  Funny how this was my last ditch effort for employment and it really is quite perfect for me in this moment. I love how life works out. And also how I am, surprisingly enough, really getting a long well with my entire family.  They are kind of my friend group right now (kinda lame, I know) but it's so nice to be near them and not have to walk on egg shells (as much).

I am really happy. I love my life.

Denver breakdown #2

Well, I had my second official breakdown since being in Denver. Not bad for being in a place for 6 months, I think. What is it with me freaking out at the 6 month mark in any committed relationship?  but i digress...

The breakdown:
It's silly.  It usually is. Yesterday we threw a baby shower for my sister and I got in my head too much feeling like I am ALWAYS the one throwing the party because I feel like I will NEVER have an event in my life worthy of a shower.  The curse of being the youngest by a lot.  I can't keep up any more.  As a kid I could learn how to act to lessen the gap in age, but that doesn't work any more.  I can't make someone love me, I can't force children on myself. I'm not ready, I know this.  I can't force that. But it doesn't make it any easier to be the VERY LAST person in my family (and seemingly in my life) to commit to anything (at all).  

I can't commit on a place to call home or even to THE IDEA of where I want my life to go.

I thought I had it all figured out.  I spent a full year and half 1400 miles away from my family to grow up and figure all this shit out so I could come home and settle down and get on with life.  And here I am regressing back to pre-North Carolina. Confused. Lost. Aimless. Spineless. This is not me. I've moved past this.

But then yesterday with the shower stuff, my mom delegated this horrifically expensive "Island Salsa" with tomatoes, mangos, kiwis, etc (It's January, mind you).  $10 at least for all this stuff and an hour and a half of chopping and it didn't even taste that good. This is what spurred the freak out. I should have stood my ground and bought a $4 salsa and no one would have known the difference, but between the fear of the wrath of my mom and guilt and pride I pushed through and painstakingly made the fucking salsa.  Complete with an embarrassing fit that lead me to the fetal position on the kitchen floor.  Thank god I was home alone. It was too much symbolism, too much of a flash back to adolescents for me not to react like I was still 16.

And then I get the urge to leave. Looking into internships abroad. Opportunities for personal growth.  Because it's obviously something wrong with ME, right?? There couldn't possibly be something wrong with the way that my family functions, could there?  If i freak out because of something that my mom MIGHT say to me then thats obviously my issue. But thats the way it works.  We don't talk about this stuff.  We don't have negative emotions. We are not confrontational.  We turn our cheeks and stuff emotions down and talk behind each others backs and move on. Except that no one moves on and we are all still bickering about the same stuff we were when I was 16!

And it's almost like it's too far gone, you know?  Like why bring up this stuff now when my parents are in their mid-60s - they are not going to change. And little ol' me sure isn't going to be the one to revolutionize the way my family communicates.  Wouldn't it just be easier to move to the mountains, start a family of my own and create a culture that I enjoy?  if only it were that easy...