When we first moved away from Colorado, almost twenty years ago, I had trouble coming back for visits. For years, I didn't want to think about moving back. It was growing too rapidly, traffic getting too congested, the cultural and political landscape changing too much, and I didn't want to move backwards in my life. I had moved on from my college years, and though I missed many of my old friends, I didn't want to slip back into our old ways. The man always assumed that we would end up here again, and through all of our travels and moves, he stuck to that theory. I wasn't so sure. It wasn't until just a few years ago, five at the most, that I even started feeling comfortable on trips "home." I am not sure what changed. Maybe all those cultural shifts looped back around so this place started to resemble the Colorado of my late teens and early twenties, or maybe the shift was all inside me. To say I've grown as a human in the last two decades since we left is a massive understatement. I am nothing like that arrogantly insecure kid I was when I left.
I've spent a lot of time traveling here since the kids started college. We became property owners here, something that was impossible for us to do in the salad days when we actually lived in town. For a short while, we were only a seven or eight hour drive away, depending on who was piloting the car, and I managed to come to town every few months. It helped that I decided what I liked most for my birthday was to come back and watch a football game at my alma mater each season. It kept me feeling like I knew what was going on, like how to navigate the new highway interchanges, and had a little vested interest in what happened to this state. And obviously, when the floods happened, we had a much larger vested interest.
I got a whole different vibe when I landed in Denver today. I felt like I owned this town. Driving up the highway into Boulder felt like coming home. It's a sea change from the discomfort I felt ten or fifteen years ago, wondering how I would ever fit in here again. Maybe it was the lack of sleep and food talking (I never sleep well the night before a flight, and I can't eat much in an airport), but I was so excited to get up here and see my realtor waiting for me to take me on our preliminary house hunting trip. It's virtually guaranteed that all four places we saw today are already under contract, and I really can't even pretend to make an offer until I have a contract on the condo we are hoping to list soon. But I feel it. We are coming home soon. All the pieces are in motion now.
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