I’ve been writing draft after draft of my thoughts and feelings about leaving Grand Junction. I’ve lived here since 2nd grade—1989, a whole lifetime—and there is just so much history to process through. I think the problem is that I’m trying to write about all of this from the middle.
When we decided to move away, I imagined how the leaving would go. I’d process everything that living here meant, I’d go on a farewell tour, people would show up and wish me well. Instead not much of it has happened how I imagined, especially internally. Every draft I write is sad and beat down and angry and exasperated and completely clear that I’ve had my fill of this place. I’m stuffed to the gills and utterly sick. What is not clear is any kind of lesson (except that I should have left sooner) and any amount of kindness or fondness for this place that raised me. It seems as though this story isn’t quite ready to be told.
Here’s what I can say: For a long time I tried to make Grand Junction into my own image. I fought and worked and wrote and petitioned and advocated and cried and hoped. I gave up and tried again over and over. Even when I was clear that what I valued (beauty, excellence, creativity, community) was not what GJ valued, I still tried to shove my beauty and creativity down its throat. I’m nothing if not tenacious.
What I can say here in the middle is that I think it’s ok to let a place be what it wants to be. And that it’s so important to recognize that if that place isn’t what YOU want it to be, that it’s time to find a new place. I regret not moving my kids out of here sooner. I regret not moving myself out of here sooner too. And until the lesson of it all becomes clear, I think I just need to leave it at that. Perhaps when it’s actually in the rearview mirror it will start to look different.
