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.