Leaving is the Hardest Part

There has been so much excitement for my family with this move.  A roller coaster of emotions.  The decision to move is exciting in itself ~ an unknown adventure about to begin.  The best part is that we have known from day one that we are in it together.  We are young, and we are in need of a new way of life.  But with the business of the traveling and planning, it is easy to forget how it will really feel to leave.  For months, we have shared our plans and timeline with friends, but now we are at the point where it is time to say goodbye and the reality and sadness is setting in.  I have one more week here in Crested Butte to live like a local and be with our friends.  

A friend commented to me today that it will be strange not to see me on errands or picking the kids up at school.  My kids won't even be at the school.  I haven't realized this until now, but through my 10 years in Crested Butte, I haven't had any friends move away.  Crested Butte folk are very committed.  Why would you want to move away?  We live at the base of an AMAZING mountain, the town is amongst the safest in America, and we can ski, bike, or hike right out our back door.  But there are downsides, too.  It can be VERY cold.  -30 degrees, anyone?  To name a few others:  my old driveway with 3 foot snowdrifts, not many great job opportunities (unless you want to work in a restaurant or be a lift-op),  and it is a town in which many residents oppose development.  That is a tough pill to swallow when you are young and ambitious.  

Living in an icebox (I believe Gunnison County is known to be one of the coldest places in the country) is not for the faint of heart.  Coming from the South, I have lived in both extremes, hot and cold.  I am not sure which one I prefer because the grass always seems greener on the other side.  I laugh because my Southern City-Livin' friends think life must be so easy out west.  That is until they come and visit.  Remote living is not always as easy as it seems.  Maybe we don't wear suits and sit in an hour of traffic twice a day, but we do drive 28 miles for Walmart and a large grocery, bundle our kids in so many clothes you can hardly buckle the car seat, shovel tons of snow, and spend weeks mending fences and yards after 7 months of winter.  It makes us tough.  I am proud of the fact that I can be tough.  I can do whatever I put my mind to.  I learned that here in Crested Butte.  I can go out and ski the North Face at too many degrees below zero, I can carry my kids on my back up to the peaks of our many mountains, and I can live thousands of miles away from my family and friends.  

I am preparing myself for my last drive as a resident from Crested Butte exactly a week from today.  I will have to pass by our old house one more time.  I will see that someone else lives there and we have moved all of our things out.  I will see the timber head gate which are the only saved pieces of the former Gothic Building at the base area before the Muellers brought such amazing changes.  I will see where our horses lived and their hay storage, feeder, round pin, and shelter.  In my rearview mirror, I will catch one last glimpse of the new deck we built before we decided to move.  So much happened in my life on that 3.4 acre parcel.  My husband had his eye on it for years before I even moved to Crested Butte, but we owned it for 8 years, and we made it ours.  At first, we built a modest little house with all that we could afford.  It is where we brought our babies home.  We added on as our family grew.  At one time, it held 2 parents, 2 kids, 2 horses, 2 dogs, and 2 cats.  Our dream, our own little ranch in the mountains of Colorado.  So many sunny days I would stand in my bedroom looking over what we had and such feelings of joy and happiness would swell in my heart.   My husband always said he would be buried out back!  We have been very blessed.

So our dream has changed.  We don't want that anymore.  That doesn't mean that the decision to sell our home and move on was an easy one.  Realizing that a life-long dream is changing is a strange feeling.  What do you do with yourself when your old dream is such a huge part of you?  You embrace what you know and allow yourself to change.  There is no sense in letting your dream roll over you and pull you back in like the tide if your soul needs something new.  Without living out this dream, I wouldn't be who I am, I wouldn't be prepared to realize new dreams awaiting me.

As I am on this new journey, I find myself forgetting to take a deep breath.  Everything has been so busy.  I guess I could say the journey began the day we decided to make changes, but right now, I feel that I am in the heart of it.  The most exciting part is here now, the change.  It is almost as if I have been the little engine huffing up the hill saying, "I think I can, I think I can".  I am almost to the top about to say, "I thought I could".  That is how we have to answer our soul's calling for something new.