Denver is such a home for me. I could drive these streets blindfolded. When I come back here, I miss it, when I am away, sometimes I forget about it. I lived here for almost 9 years. This city was the gateway to the world for me, I feel I owe it so much.

However I look back in my time here and I see the same pattern played over and over again. That pattern that ended in sadness. I know all the best dance clubs, where to get the cheapest drinks, and which long term care facilities not to check your grandparents in to. I never comes a fourteener our white water rafted. After the first year I never went skiing or mountain biking. I became this city girl who worked her ass off and partied. Don’t get me wrong, I had a ton of fun. I dated and had friends, and felt ever so glamorous compared to the Iowa girl I had been. I gained confidence, I kicked ass as a reservist, I felt like I took on the world and was winning.

It’s funny now looking back, on how I wasn’t winning, and I wasn’t exploring, and I wasn’t really getting far. I was lost. Some people graduated high school, go to college, and just make it to where they want to be. I never knew where I was going when I went to college. My parents left that door of possibilities too open for me. I wonder if they saw how lost I was when I ran as far as comfortable from those Iowa cornfields.

I was successful at the jobs I worked, in the navy, I even had boyfriend after boyfriend. My scale of what I considered “making it” was pretty narrow. Something was missing, in fact I would breakdown over the fact I couldn’t save the world, I couldn’t help other people. That whole time, by other people, I meant me.

So I went to war to find myself… FYI… That is not the way to do it. Instead of making my own adventure at discovering life I thought the military would do it for me. However, they expected me to already have the thick skin necessary to put up with people being horrible to one another, and not just enemy to enemy. There us more to that story, some I’ve told before, some I’ll tell at another time.

Moral is when I returned the first time, Denver was it, I rebuilt life and it looked slightly different than before. It was more lonely. I threw myself in to an awesome career, and that just consumed me. I loved the job as an EMT, I excelled at it. I was making a difference for people, that was my mission. However it was a stepping stone and I wasn’t dealing with myself. After my second tour Denver was foreign to me in a way. I want compensating and I needed help, but I felt trapped and unable to help myself. At the time I was just still lost, now I recognize I wasn’t able to help myself and despite others trying if a person can’t help themselves a little then others trying is like speaking to a wall. They kept trying though. I’m thankful for that.

At the point I really lost it, I finally left. Now when I go back I search for how to make things different than before. Not many of the old friends are left, mostly my family. They ask me when I’m coming back, and I honestly don’t know… If… When. This city has a piece of my heart for eternity, but if I return, will I be able to keep making my life more than it was before? This wandering is making me learn how to do life differently, and I’m cautious of settling in to a place where I continue to disregard self-care.

I love you Denver, but I don’t know if we are made for each other still. I do love visiting you, and I’m learning to remember the good by being here, and not just the bad.

Signing off Denver, CO

Dear wanderers, if your relationship with your family (immediate or extended) is not something that is healthy at this time, that is okay, still listen. You should know that family is important despite your current struggles. Family can be blood or bond related. I have family of both origins. I find one of the most emotionally difficult relationships in life is with the family you were raised with. There are unspoken or spoken expectations, which you may or may not feel the burden of. You feel pressure to fit in to a mold that matches those expectations, or the opposite… Your run from it. They often feel like strangers because the relationship is not as purposeful.

So today I speak to not only how your family affects you, but how you affect them.

If you meet a new friend at the local coffee shop, would you expect them to fit your mold? What if you find out that they are completely different from you? Despite this, you enjoy each other’s company with respect and tolerance. Right? I know I have friends who are nothing like me, but we enjoy our friendship anyway. They don’t force me to play video games or eat vegetarian. I don’t force them to smoke or sing karaoke. Often they become my family by bond.

The pressure you feel from family’s to fit their mold is in both you and them. Family’s should give unconditional love, no matter who you are as a person. This stops happening when the different people cannot see outside the box they choose to live in. Each person chooses how they live, and what is right for them. Then they fail to allow others to choose differently. Sometimes it is because they think their way is the only right way, or it is the most successful way. Other times is because they are just too busy in life to learn and accept differences.

Often family members use less tact, gossip more, are more blunt, and are not easy to walk away from or ignore. They don’t respect your wishes of privacy because they don’t understand. They fail to truly listen. They offer support in so many ways that sometimes come with strings attached.

I personally grew up idolizing many of my extended family members, and so as a young adult kept trying to achieve their approval. I stood up to my parents more easily than the remainder of my family. This often left me in tears of frustration, feeling because I felt differently, believed differently that I was a failure. I started distancing myself, limiting conversations, trying to figure out me, not who they wanted me to be, but who I wanted to be. This looked a lot like a rebellious teenager. Doing things in my life to spite the wishes of others. Half the time they never knew, because I was simultaneously trying to live to their standard. Oh, how I feel so false looking back, but it was all I knew how to do and survive.

If your family does not live a positive life and enables you to do things that are not in your best interest it is okay to walk away. Maybe once you have found yourself, away from those negative influences and changed to be confident in yourself, you can return and attempt a relationship. I have seen this to be a better method than continuing to put up with it.

I’ve been lucky with my family, they always mean well (sometimes in their own twisted way), but it hasn’t always fit. They care so much that they want the others to know, so they share info that wasn’t theirs to share. I don’t think any of them have ever intentionally set out to hurt me (which I know does happen sometimes in other families). I still found myself needing to distance from them, which solved very little because I still did not understand some very important things in life. Specifically, how to deal with other people.

The same philosophy applies to family and to anyone else who attempts to influence your life. IT IS YOUR CHOICE HOW THEY AFFECT YOU. It just sometimes seems harder with families. This is really difficult to do, so often you hear from friends after you tell them about a trouble you have, “don’t let it bother you”. You respond, yeah, you’re right. Then it keeps bothering you. Maybe you wonder why you can’t just let it go.

It is in this moment I ask people, do you love yourself? Do you have confidence in the way you are living your life? If not, why are you living it that way? It takes practice to love yourself and not allow others affect the way you are, unless you want them to. You are allowing them to affect you, but then again, we were raised to respect our elders, to listen to their wisdom. They have wisdom, but it does not always apply to everyone they share it with. Sometimes they share something profound that makes your want to follow that lead, and that is great.

You cannot change how other people act our what they say, but you can learn to respond with tolerance, respect, and distance if need be. My family is crazy overbearing sometimes. They have hurt my feelings, and left me confused at times. This was an issue in my life. Now that I am journeying to find my true happiness in life, I am also finding confidence, learning to love myself, and care for myself. Today with my extended family I was more at ease, but also found that I didn’t need to speak as much.

The less I talk these days, the less I receive hurtful responses, whether intended or not. I am part of the family, but I choose not to take an active role in every conversation. I soak when I feel I have something positive and important to put in. I find this is where I am happy with my family. Helping my Papa get his food, listening to stories, and playing with the kids. I don’t share info that solicits response, because I desire no advice. I offer input about respect tolerance and love, because that us what I desire and what I desire for others.

Through everything my family had always been willing to help me out, and I live them for it. The truth about a wanderers family… Let them love you. If you are being you, and love you, which is part of the point of wandering, then you can be grateful that crazy opinionated people love you, care for you, but do not control your happiness.

I was glad I made my family reunion today. It was an important step in my journey, to make my relationship with them a priority. I hope of you have felt your family relationship is a rocky one that you can find peace, understanding, and love with them. With time scars fade and can be replaced by something better. You choose how you react.

Signing off Commerce City, CO

That is the Time and Relative Dimension in Space… AKA Sexy.

It looks like a blue gray Honda Accord thanks to the chameleon circuit, which has been stuck that way since 2003. For the most part it works correctly, but today it failed me. This car has done well so far carry me through time and space (we haven’t worked out the dimension part yet, The Doctor didn’t leave directions for that part). However, we all know that Sexy has a mind of her own. Today she opted to not complete the journey to Woodland Park for V’s baby shower, instead redirecting me to Commerce City.

I was extremely concerned as we were traveling through a wibbly wobbly area of the mountains with no pull off in sight when she failed to accelerate up a particular hill. This was of utmost concern due to the fact that I had been in the fast lane and those other cars were going MUCH faster than ole Sexy here. Fortunately she guided us in to a pull off and we checked the operating systems for failure. Apparently she was a little low on cosmic juice. Since I was also low on extra cosmic juice for her, we determined it was best to return to Denver (a downhill drive).

Once down the hill Sexy was acting fine. She really does have a mind of her own. An S.O.S. was put out to the local D.A.D and he was standing by upon landing at the parental units property. Though disappointing to have rerouted the trip for the day, I did manage to get some pictures of me playing under Sexy’s hood. We performed all the primary maintenance necessary and then some to return her to peak performance.

The moral of my Doctor Who inspired tale for the day is that sometimes life has plans of it’s own. I could sit here and assume that if I hadn’t bought the cheap gas, or had changed the oil before this leg of the trip that it may have gone smoothly. Both might be accurate, or maybe it just wasn’t meant to be for today. Dear wanderer, I hope by now you are beginning to understand that when things occur, each person can choose if their metaphorical glass is half empty or half full. In the end, whatever you choose, remember it is more important that there is ALWAYS something in the cup to work with. I encourage you to sit back and tell yourself the story as if you believe it were both ways, as I did above. Then choose the one that most pleases you. I find the half full story is much better… That sometimes life just happens outside my control. Now that I am accepting this, the moments of stress, overwhelming fear, and anxiety are diminished or easily overcome through self talk and introspection.

I’m a fan of metaphors (if you haven’t noticed), so think of this as a glass of milk. The reason you shouldn’t cry over spilt milk is not because you have more milk (maybe you don’t). It is because once the milk is spilt, you can’t unspill it, no matter how hard you cry or how much you fight. So why fight?

Earlier this year, I locked my keys in my car twice, in one week, in the same store parking lot. I had to call the same lock smith, who sent the same man, who performed the same procedure. Where as once upon a time I would have fallen apart, hidden away, maybe even abandoned the car and walked five miles home to sit outside and wait for my brother… This time I laughed. The second time I laughed. Then I sat on my trunk to meditate the residual anxiety away while waiting for the locksmith. This was the point that I found I was becoming more capable and happier at life. It was pre-wandering, but I was changing. I had tools which showed me to laugh and meditate through the problem.

Don’t cry over the spilt milk, go pour yourself a glass of something else, and make the story something you enjoy telling. It can be done, that is your choice.

Signing off Commerce City, CO.