Saying goodbye to everyone at our going away party was sad and hard but I managed it much better than expected. My family came to take us out to dinner the night before our move and I tried to keep the goodbye as brief as possible because I could barely handle it. The morning of our move, some of our very best friends met us at the crack of dawn for a little coffee before we drove away for good. Again, I tried to keep the goodbyes, or shall I say, "see ya laters" as brief as possible. After everyone drove away I sat down outside and bawled my eyes out. When we got into the car it took me hours before I could fall asleep because I could not stop crying. It is simply outrageous how emotional I am.
However, we are now in Denver and we are loving it. We are missing our friends and family every day but I find comfort in knowing that no matter what, love is love and nothing can diminish the bonds we have with our loved ones. Thankfully there is such a thing as the world wide web which provides countless means of communication and keeping in touch! And there's the whole phone call thing as well but we all know how that goes.
We really felt like we wanted to move to a state where we could live an active lifestyle and be able to promote an active lifestyle for our future children. Denver seemed perfect because the city life calls for a lot of walking and biking and just outside of the city are countless hiking and skiing opportunities. The only draw back is the absence of community that we had back in Illinois. I have been struggling with the idea of trading that community for city and mountains. Does hiking in the mountains or having countless things to do in a city mean anything if it can't be experienced with friends? The answer is, of course, no. At least for not for me. So then there comes the idea of trading our loving Illinois community for a new community here in Colorado. Will forming a new community here void out the old one? Absolutely not. Never. The struggle is making new meaningful relationships while also maintaining old ones. It is obviously not a trade, only an addition. And I hope that every one who is a part of our community knows this and understands this fully.
While we are still adjusting and figuring out how daily life works for us here in Denver, we have not had any opportunities to make friends. The first place we will look is at a church somewhere but we want to try out a few different ones before calling one our own. I can only trust that there is at least one out here where we can fit in and feel at home. It has been nice, though, to be able to lean in on one another and focus on our relationship while experiencing all these new things together. There is absolutely no one else in this universe that I would want by my side through any of this.
We are still arranging our tiny little studio apartment so I have no pictures yet, however, here are a couple of photos of Jeremy ribbon dancing in our old apartment because they will make you laugh. Keep a lookout for my next post which should include pictures of our new place!
xoxo, tiff