Traveling solo again
to a home that's no longer home
It’s been a while since I last sent out a newsletter. I’ve been out of town and busy with other writing. But happy to be back!
Spring break was different for us this year: we all went our separate ways. Family life can be monotonous and the separation was good for all of us. Daniel stayed home (his work is too busy right now to leave town), June got invited to go to the beach with a friend and her mom, which left me on my own for the first time in a really long time. I challenged myself to a solo trip (more later on why it was a challenge) to visit a good friend in a safe place—Boulder, Colo., my home before moving to Nashville.
This trip brought up a lot of emotions for me around the idea of “home,” and how it defines us but inevitably changes many times over the course of a lifetime. The question ‘Where are you from?’ has always been a hard one for me to answer. My family is in Las Vegas, where I spent most of my childhood, but I haven’t called that city home since I was 18 years old.
Where is home and where do I want it to be? Is it Boulder, Colorado where I lived for twelve years, my undergraduate and graduate school years, where I grew up and became who I am today? Where I made my closest friends, discovered my passions in life; where I got married to my first boyfriend and shortly after divorced; where I was when my mom died. Where I feel the most myself (besides Italy). And where I almost stayed for the rest of my life had I not gotten the job that brought me to Nashville.
Boulder. I loved living there, both as a young college student and as an older graduate student when I came back after living in the PNW for a few years. I’m not the same person I was when I lived there, of course, but I still have a deep connection to Colorado. It’s where I—and my brothers and both of my parents—were born, and a place that makes up a large, important chunk of my personal story. If, as empty nesters, D. and I someday move from Nashville would it be to Colorado? We love the mountains, the weather, the wide openness and more progressive politics…
But Nashville is where I met my life partner, my husband; it’s where he is from. It’s where I had my only child. It’s where I learned that the career I thought I wanted and worked so hard for was not meant to be. And it’s where I became a wife, a mother, a homeowner and a writer. Where I stepped into middle age, suffered some serious health problems, and embarked on the long, slow healing journey I’m currently on. I have been here almost 20 (!) years now. I am not a southerner, definitely not, but my home is in the South. I’ve lived here longer than anywhere else.
Earlier I used the words “safe” and “challenge” to describe my trip to Boulder. “Safe” does not describe the city of Boulder itself, though it very much is that too (Jon Benet Ramsey case notwithstanding). Safe because I was going to visit a good friend who knows me and my struggles of late. I wouldn’t be all alone. The trip was a “challenge” because the last four-to-five years for me have been marked by mental health issues that have prevented me from being on my own, let alone fly across the country by myself. Very high anxiety, panic attacks and a (new) fear of flying have plagued me at a time when I should be venturing out more and more, like I did in my 20’s and 30’s. I am a little more free to travel now—my daughter is almost fifteen and doesn’t need me as much. I don’t have a job that requires me to ask for time off. I am pretty flexible.
My therapist, when I told her about the trip said, “This is good for you, a challenge you are ready for. You have to fight for your freedom.” It sounds cliché but I knew what she meant: that in order to overcome my fears of traveling alone I had to do this. I had to prove to myself that I am still the independant and strong woman I always was. Crazy how life (and mental illness) can make us forget something like that.
So I set out to prove it to myself. And to reconnect with Boulder, with my friend and ultimately, with myself. June, safely ensconced in a beach house in Florida, and Daniel looking forward to having the house all to himself, it was my turn to leave.
I packed my “emergency meds” just in case I got too nervous while boarding the plane, or overwhelmed for some reason on the trip, or—and this is very important for me right now—if I could not sleep. Sleep is one of the most crucial elements of my wellness and stability. Lack of sleep over a few days can really send my nervous system into the red. I packed my little pill boxes with all my meds (who am I? I barely took more than Tylenol until the last few years) and threw in a few extra just in case I got stranded due to weather or some other unforseen travel delay.
I had zero problems on the flight out there. I only fly direct now if I can (it cuts way down on the total time I have to be a nervous wreck). I had just enough time to grab a coffee and a chocolate croissant at the airport. On the flight I talked to no one, which is unusal for me. It was an early flight so most people just slept. I read a book, looked at a magazine and listened to music. My friend, K., was there to pick me up at DIA which is nice since it’s about an hour away from Boulder.
As we hugged each other tightly we remarked on how “great” we look—both a little older and a little grayer, but still the same in so many ways. I realized on this trip how alike we are. We both talk a LOT so it made for some long conversations, as if we needed to get everything out all at once, catching up on the last weeks, months and years. K. and I met while working in a restaurant while I was in graduate school in Boulder. She was the manager, I was a server and occasional bartender. She and another friend and I became really close, like you do when working in the trenches of the hospitality industry. Those are some of the most fun days of my adult life. The early 2000’s were a tough time for me personally (my mom died and my short-lived marriage to my first husband fell apart) and these friends were my supports and still are.
Boulder was the same and yet very different. It’s even more exclusive and bougie, but still has the same outdoorsy-college town vibe I’ve always loved. I enjoyed getting caught up in my memories, in the nostalgia for my 20’s and early- 30’s and the person I was then. I have spent a good deal of time blocking out much of the past, but being in Boulder, walking the streets where I used to live and work during a difficult time in my life but one that was filled with so much growth at the same time, was intoxicating.
Every time I looked to the west and saw the Flatirons towering over the city it still took my breath away.
I ate too many pastries, discovered some new favorite coffee shops and restaurants, marveled at the way all the boutiques on Pearl St. had become so posh ($300 for a pair of jeans!), more like Aspen than the hippie Boulder I remembered. I walked around the Hill near the university where I lived in several different houses during my undergrad years. My mind was flooded with memories, even sensory ones, like the smell of the huge muffins I used to get at the coffee shop on the Hill that’s no longer there. I was surprised to see a big new hotel just down the hill from College Ave., obstructing the veiw of downtown, and another one being built across the street. I guess all those CU parents need somewhere nice to stay. Where did they stay before? Where did my parents stay?
I met an old professor of mine from grad school for coffee one morning. I was a little nervous to see him; we’ve kept in touch off and on over the years but hadn’t seen each other in long time. He was grayer, like me, but the same little cantankerous Irishman I remembered. We laughed as he caught me up on all the drama in academia and our old department. He’s nearing retirement and bought an old stone cottage on the sea in Ireland and goes there every chance he gets. Oh, and “The university is dead,” he said. (Yeesh).
The four-day trip was the perfect amount of time. I was ready to go home by mid-morning on Friday, my last day. When I started to get notifications that my flight was a little delayed and heard about the storm coming torwards Nashville that I’d have to fly into, I opted to take half a pill just to help ease the anxiety I could feel coming on. It’s okay, I told myeslf. The travel part is the hard part.
I took the bus to the airport—something I always used to do when I was a student. It takes a little longer than driving but it used to be free with a student ID (and only $10 now). The ride gave me a chance to sit silently and look out the window at the brown, winter landscape, all the new development, the rolling hills and open space taken over by endless miles of drab housing (growth is everywhere). And to connect the dots bewteen the woman I was on so many bus rides to the airport all those years ago—most of them alone and filled with the excitement I always felt for traveling—and the woman I am now, with so many years under my belt, so much life lived, and hopefully, so much more ahead. Colorado will always be home to me, even if I never live there again. I realized it wouldn’t be that easy to go back and live there as I am now. I’ve changed too much.
Back home in Nashville, it officially feels like spring, my favorite time of year here. The red buds, magnolias and forsythia are flowering and the days are longer now. Before we know it it’ll be hot-and-humid summer again and I’ll be longing for Colorado.
So happy for you! I love that you got to visit Colorado again.