Why do I sometimes find change to be difficult? I’m always excited about new adventures, but there also seems to be some level of anxiety as well.
Today my sweetie and I leave our beautiful apartment in Broomfield Colorado and move to my condo in Las Vegas. I could not be more excited.
I bought the condo a little over a year ago with the intent of retiring there some day. My daughter has been living in the condo but decided to move out and as Andrew is able to work remotely we decided, “What the heck? Let’s move now.” And within two weeks, we are had a plan. I love the condo. I’m very excited to live there, to make it my own in a way that you really can’t with an apartment. Las Vegas is such an easy place to live. Added bonus, I will finally, after five years, again be living in a city with one of my children. My children are very important to me and I am absolutely delighted that I will be so close to my daughter after so many years.
That said, there’s still a level of apprehension about this move today. It still feels bittersweet. I find myself choking up a little bit, being a little bit weepy, but my children would tell you I’m that way anyway. That’s true; I feel things deeply. I’m not really sure what I’m feeling deeply right now though.
I have loved Colorado. It is stunningly beautiful. I have found favorite places here that I will miss, Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, Estes Park and my favorite coffee shop, hiking around Stearns Lake in the Carolyn Holmberg Preserve, the Denver Botanic Gardens, the Butterfly Pavillion, being close enough to visit Andrew‘s parents in Loveland for Sunday brunch.
I will miss the beauty of the mountains and and the lovely flowers here. I will miss this place.
Living in Colorado has been an adventure. It was here that we navigated the Covid pandemic, including lockdown and almost two years of masking and social distancing.
It was here that I learned to love people again (while still masked and social distanced) by taking a job at Savanah Bee Company in Boulder so I could learn about mead, honey, bees, and reintroduce myself to my love of people. It worked! I had a blast!
It was in here that I met Victorine Mbong Shu virtually and then traveled to South Africa for the launch of our co-edited anthology Writing about Motherhood Honesty. Our collaboration has continued to Victorine’s participation in OSCLG in October and our work on the upcoming sequel Writing about Fatherhood Honesty.
It was in here that, on an impulse, I took a holiday job at Harry & David in Flatiron Crossing Mall because I loved their products and thought it would be fun. At H&D, I met Emma Jugganaikloo, and started my journey collaborating with The American Campus (TAC) in Mauritius. Through this opportunity, I learned how to teach remotely synchronously and asynchronously. I had the pleasure of going to Mauritius to teach in-person for six weeks. I served as Provost and Academic Vice President to help them get the school off the ground. I was the commencement speaker for our first graduating class (bucket list). It was a wonderful adventure!
It was here that I learned for sure that my relationship with Andrew could weather anything. With him is exactly where I want to be. We were together, literally in the same space, negotiating life day-to-day, during Covid and loving each other all the more.
So many wonderful, serendipitous things have happened while we’ve lived in Colorado.
But I’m also ready to move on to my next adventure. I think the anxiety comes from the unknowing. Is this a good decision? Is this the best decision? Will we be happy in Nevada? These are all silly, futuristic questions that have no answer in the now. And when I look back over the list of things that came into my life during the five years I lived in Colorado, none of them were anticipated. So, I step into the anxiety. I step into the 24 foot U-Haul that I will take the first shift driving across country, and I move forward into the next stage of my adventure open and curious about what the future will hold.
Deborah's Deliberations 