We flew into Denver on a Wednesday afternoon, in between snowstorms, greeted by snow-covered mountains and blue skies. My heart lifted at the sight of the Rocky Mountains.
I've long said that I left a piece of my heart in Colorado, and it's true. But I found that returning there didn't feel like being made whole, exactly. I found instead that the piece I left doesn't quite fit anymore -- because my time there is temporary. Instead, I felt acutely the sense of belonging, and yet not.
It's not the ache I have when missing Colorado from Virginia. It's not even quite a sadness at all. It's a poignant nostalgia, a sort of elegy for the ephemeral nature of all things. Being there, I discern a melancholy regret for the forced choices in life...that a choice to have a life in Virginia means a choice not to have a life here.
Driving through the city, walking along sidewalks and into shops and restaurants, even stepping into my favorite library branch for old times' sake. It's all so utterly mundane and yet so utterly visceral. I am flooded with memory.
I am in the longed-for places, set in a world that mattered so much to me. I am struck by the impact of all that mattered to me, and how deeply. And why? I never felt this way with Harrisonburg, my very hometown. I wonder suddenly if it's because this is the place where I grew into my adult self. At age 23, two years out of college and nearly two years married when I moved here, I was ostensibly an adult already. But still a fledgling, untested and untried when it came to making my own way in the world. I had landed so close to the nest in my previous launches. But perhaps this place is so dear to me in part because it shepherded me into my truer, better self. Here I become someone who knows what she wants and what makes her happy, and what she needs most to survive.
After a day, the feeling passes. Instead, it's replaced by the unprecedented, unexpected sense that it's okay that I don't live here right now. It sounds so simple, but having spent roughly a year in place-based sorrow, missing a home I left behind for another home, it was an enormous relief.
The thing is, I love the person I became while living in Colorado. I think I was afraid that I'm not that person anymore -- that I've lost some of those defining qualities.
But here in my favorite park on earth, I felt as if no time at all had passed since my last hike there. It could have been last week or last month, and that was a very, very welcome feeling.
This place I love so dearly welcomed me with open arms, and I hope that means it always will.
The people were no different. When we reconnected with dear friends we hadn't seen in over a year, it was easy, and it still felt like family.
One thing I said over and over was that I hope it isn't as long again before our next visit. If I'd known on December 17, 2017 that it would be March 2019 before I saw the Rocky Mountains again, I don't know how I would have accepted it. But in retrospect, I think it needed to be this long. Until recently, I wouldn't have been able to visit without wanting desperately to stay forever.
Visiting Beth-El for church on Sunday, I still felt that way. Maybe it was the sending blessing for another family who was moving away, but I was surprised at how hard it was to say goodbye. It's a good thing I made my peace years ago with crying in front of people, because it was embarrassing to be wiping away tears while making ordinary conversation about people's jobs and such. I suppose it's a sign that this community means so much to me.
Still, I left the Springs that Sunday afternoon holding onto the very real sense of closure from the last several days. It doesn't override the melancholy, but it makes it okay.
