Fall Recap!

It has been so long since  I wrote. I have honestly been having too much fun traveling, having visitors, and exploring the awesome area of the city I now live in. In August, I went back to Chicago with April to visit my friends. We had such a great time even with the humidity being ridiculous. Chicago will always be home to me. It's kind of indescribable the way it gets under your skin.

In October, I got to go see my family. I love visiting and seeing how much my little nephew changes with each visit. I love him so freaking much. It makes it harder to be away. But I know one day when he can understand he will admire his crazy Aunt Rachel for always going for her dreams.

I also had two of my best friends as visitors in October, Rene and Kristin. It makes me so happy to see my friends and show them my new city. Oh, and I also was in a guitar concert in October for my guitar class. Felt like a major rockstar. I plan on keeping up the guitar lessons for the long haul.

And finally, April and I hosted a couple of parties the last few months. We had a small get together for Halloween and an awesome Thanksgiving with friends. It was my first Thanksgiving away from my family and even though I always miss them, we had an absolutely wonderful time cooking for friends. The turkey turned out amazing and I loved getting to make the pumpkin pie just like mom taught me.

Work has been pretty insane this year. I honestly have questioned a few times why I chose this career. I am always feeling like nothing I do will every be good enough. I am doing the best I can, and the best doesn't feel good enough. I need more hours in the day. I sometimes feel like I need a less stressful job. Focusing on positives helps. So has taking work home on occasion. I also need to not be so hard on myself. I am doing the best I can. And that has to be enough.

I am so freaking excited for the holidays! Bring on Christmas and all of the Christmas things!!!

Life changes

I got to move downtown last week. I knew that I wanted to live down in this area since a month after I moved to Denver. I had come down for a yoga class and realized how cute it was and how many things there seemed to be to do. I started visualizing it and believing it could happen back in October of last year.  And I made it happen!

I moved into a two bedroom apartment with April in a neighborhood called, Lohi, or the lower highlands. I immediately have felt happier after making this move. I'm realizing that the transition from Chicago to a suburb of Denver was way too drastic of a change.

I'm now able to bike around on bike trails and in the city again and able to walk to yoga classes. I live by amazing restaurants and lots of places with happy hours. I am walking and/or biking distance from some of the coolest areas of the city. And I get to live with a friend, which is good for me right now because I did spend the last year missing Chicago and friends so much. I don't miss it as much now that I'm back in the energy of a city. I can't wait to explore everywhere.

Today was our first day back at work for this school year. The summer always flies by so fast, especially when you have epic experiences. I got to see Alaska, Ireland, hike a ton, and move to my dream neighborhood. Every school year I get anxious and nervous that I'm not up for the job, or that I've forgotten everything I know about how to do it. I fear not being good enough. Hopefully once I get back in the swing of things, that will fade. I hope by relying on the support of some great team members, I can handle some of the things that tend to give me the most challenges. Can't believe it's year five as a school psychologist already. Guess we gotta go ahead and do this thing. I'm already planning my next adventure.

I consider myself something of a wanderer. People here have started to ask me if I see myself settling in Colorado long-term. My answer is that I have no clue whatsoever. I can see myself here in this area and in this job for around five years total. I can't see further than that, and I suppose I could even change my mind about that sooner. Here is what I do know. Life can start to feel stagnant, even when you are having amazing experiences with great friends or your family. Life can start to feel stagnant even when you are living in a place where you have grown and changed and feel like you truly belong, if you live there long enough. I am feeling better about living here as more time goes by, especially knowing that I get to move downtown soon. I have missed the energy and opportunity of living in the heart of a city and connected to everything.

Having said that, I still miss Chicago and honestly think I always will. It is part of my heart and soul. It's hard to describe. It's just a complete sense of belonging and acceptance and having become who I am there. If I were to move back I would miss the mountains in the same way though. Why can't we be everywhere we want to be at once?

I also miss Kansas City and my family as well. I wish I could be there to see my family weekly instead of every four or five months. I want to see my beautiful nephew learn and grow. Kansas City shaped me too.

I miss people every time I visit and have to leave or every time they visit me and have to go back. I try to avoid seeing some social media posts because if I keep living in the past I won't be able to eve be fully present.

I've been thinking about this a lot clearly. But being a wanderer is just part of who I am. It's the hardest thing in the world to move on and leap and try new things, but it is always worth it. And part of this need to wander also means I have crazy, huge wanderlust.

I just got back from an amazing trip to Alaska. I went with a tour group called Alaska Outdoors. They lead adventure tours more off of the beaten path in small groups. There were nine of us on this tour, plus our awesome guide who basically knew everything about everything. We traveled from Anchorage to Whittier to pick up the ferry to Valdez. The ferry ride to Valdez was 6.5 hours long. We were super lucky and got amazing weather the whole ride. It was the longest I have just enjoyed scenery and done nothing else (except a nap here and there) probably ever. View after view after view.

We set up camp just out of Valdez by and amazing waterfall. The next day we did sea kayaking among icebergs! They warned us not to get too close to icebergs as they can flip at any moment as the water warms them and most of an iceberg is invisible so you can't even tell how big they are. We nearly got flipped when we approached an iceberg the guide said looked "safe," lol. It was kinda awesome. After Valdez, we went to Wrangell St.-Elias national park. We stayed in super cute cabins and got to hike along the glacier. Our last stop was the Matanuska Glacier. We got to camp with a glacier view. In the morning we walked along the safe parts of the glacier.

My major takeaways from the trip: It was so so so nice to be mostly unplugged for a week. Everyone was super nice and fun, and we all engaged with each other and the scenery instead of staring at our phones and social media. It was relaxing. Alaska is huge and amazing and I will definitely be going back.

Springtime

It's been a while since I wrote. Things have been pretty busy, especially at work. I went to Los Angeles last month for spring break. It was my third time in California, but first time in Los Angeles. I loved it. The hiking there is amazing, you can't beat  the weather, and the ocean is just everything. I can't wait to go back.

I have been working to regain a positive mindset. With things at work being tough after spring break, I was falling into a pattern of complaining and negativity. The past week I have really been working on using my positive affirmations to change my mindset. I already see a difference. We're so close to the end of the school year. This Friday we have a rally downtown at the capital for school funding and our pension fund. The district made us take personal days in order to go, but so many people requested it that school for the kids has been cancelled! Education is the key to everything. One day I hope people in this country realize it.

I still am so grateful to have the opportunity to live here. I used to have to drive over an hour to get to any sort of nature preserve away from the city in Chicago and then it would just be grassland, which is fine, but not the challenge I want and need. Here I can drive 35 minutes to Boulder and have amazing views all around me. I need to remember when times are tough that what I have is what I have been dreaming of since I was 17.

Happy Spring everyone!

Hike on

What does hiking mean to me?
Every time I drive west and I see the mountains I feel a release of stress and a burst of joy. I know that I can escape my problems for a few hours and turn off my phone and just be. Work has been stressful lately. If I'm honest, most of the time I feel an undercurrent of stress in this profession. I feel pressure from having to do so many different things, most of which come with deadlines. I also feel an underlying pressure to always be on my toes and have the answer. Sometimes I don't have the answer right away, and that stresses me out. Sometimes I feel like what I'm doing doesn't matter. And sometimes I just straight up run out of patience. It can be hard to focus on the good after you have a tough day or week.

And so I go to the mountains every chance I get to refresh and escape. Hiking is also full of metaphors for life. You have to work hard for a great view. You can't give up. Even if your steps are small or you stumble, you have to keep going to reach the summit. You might be scared sometimes or unsure of how you're going to make it, but with support from the people you are with and with inner strength you can make it all the way. So I keep hiking on.

Colorado Love

I caught myself today thinking to myself, "I don't know if I could ever leave here." Living here has something that living in Chicago and KC didn't. I can leave my place every day and look out and see the mountains from home and from work. I can go out on the weekend, turn off my phone, and see beautiful things. I have a job that I really do love most of the time, even though it can be stressful. I work with some amazing people who really care about what they do.

In the month before I left Chicago, I would sometimes start crying so hard I would hyperventilate. I was terrified to leave the people I loved and the life I had made there. I became a different version of myself there and felt loved and accepted fully. I was so scared. Leaving a place you feel loved and accepted is scary because you can't know what new good things are waiting for you in the new place. All you know is that you are leaving a place you love and people you love.

And now here I am in a new place I already really do love. And never would've known it if I'd been to scared to try.