Writings and Ramblings
Date: April 5th
Location: Leadville
In January 2026 I moved to Leadville, CO. I chased love into the mountains and found myself physically alone for the first time in my (at the time) 32 years of life. For a little context: last December I quit my stable, but spark-depleting, job of four and a half years to take a chance on a job in the mountains. This new job wasn’t so different from my old one that had burned me out, but I thought the change from the plains and prairies of eastern Colorado to the high Rockies would snap me out of it.
I was very much wrong.
I didn’t just move to a small mountain town, I moved to a quiet small apartment complex OUTSIDE of town. When I say quiet I mean dead silent aside from the traffic noise from the highway. I don’t see my neighbors, I don’t hear my neighbors. Do I have neighbors?? I am still not sure three months later.
I left my teenager in the care of their grandmother (my mother) with the hopes of moving them both up with me at some point in the future once I had settled.
But there was no settling. Almost from day one I dreaded being alone in my apartment. Of course I had my partner's cat, Rajii, with me, but as helpful as he is I learned I needed people near me. My partner would stay weekends with me but I went the week all alone in my little slice of isolation. Did I also mention I have bipolar disorder that mostly presents with all-encompassing depression and melancholy deeply influenced by the season? Did I also mention that just prior to moving I had lapsed (for the millionth time) in my nightly medication rituals?
This was not a good time for uprooting my life, for any transition at all.
I will admit that I built this experience up in my head, that I thought this would fix things in me that I had been neglecting and chalking up to being in a job I no longer loved. A tall order for anything to live up to. Long story short I couldn’t handle being on my own, in my own head, in my own company all of the time with the slight reprieve of my weekend visits with my partner.
Content warning: mentions of suicidal ideation and suicide ahead
I was depressed. I was still burnt out. I was uninspired. I very much had felt like I had lost my spark for life. Suicidal ideation was my near constant companion. It was just ideation after all and I just pushed through it like I have all my life. Until January 30th/February 1st, that’s the day I knew I was really in trouble with my mental health. I had just gotten to spend the weekend with my partner, he went to a party that I was not invited to and I had to drive home alone and I spiraled. I truly did not want to live anymore. It wasn’t anything to do with anything that happened that night or weekend, my feelings just became so overwhelming and magnified by the hour long drive in the dark along a mountain road back towards my dark lonesome apartment. I cried the entire way home.
I erratically texted my partner about how I was feeling, how I was scared and lonely and how I wanted to die. When I got home safely (but 2 hours later instead of 1 hour) he talked to me on the phone for what seemed like forever. I made it through that night but it was a trend I repeated just a few weeks later and then again most recently on March 19th. My teenager was spending the week with me but decided to go back to their grandmother’s early. I took them the 2 hour drive home, spent a little time with my mother and then had to return to Leadville to go to work the next day. I cried as I drove away from them. When I got past Idaho Springs this time felt different. I was truly frightened I would do something to end my life. For the first time in my life I called a crisis counselor. I was put in contact with Lonnie. Thank the stars for Lonnie. He was based in Edwards, an hour ahead of me on I-70. We talked and he convinced me to meet him to chat in person at the clinic he worked at. After a long tearful phone call with my partner about meeting with Lonnie and my feelings about wanting to die I was convinced to pick him up before I met with Lonnie.
If my partner had not come with me I would have been placed on a 72-hour hold. Which may have been the best thing for me but something I couldn’t afford financially. Lonnie, in no uncertain terms, told me that I probably needed to not live alone anymore. That I hadn’t failed at being an adult, that I wasn’t any kind of failure at all. Just a person living with a mental illness that should probably go back on their meds and get more social interaction as a start towards being more mentally well. I will never forget Lonnie’s unending kindness and compassion, something surprisingly hard to find sometimes in the folks that work with mental illnesses. I went back on my meds, got an appointment with a psychiatrist for the following week, and have been slowly mending since then.
End of Content Warning
Ever since, I’ve felt a little more stable and more certain that my life had to change. That I needed to do something to work towards a life that better aligned with who I hope to be, or who I aspire to be. I started thinking about leaving my second stable job to do something else. I applied to dozens of different jobs I thought might hire me and I got many interviews and calls back but when I’d get to the point of an interview I would panic and politely decline or cancel. I knew none of these jobs were what I was looking for. I needed something else.
Ever since that night in March I have been obsessively journaling and asking myself questions, trying to get at the heart of me. What do I love so passionately? The outdoors, nature, Mother Earth. It’s what I have made art about for years. It’s what I weave into my daily life in how I live and exist, it shapes my spiritual and physical being. So I started applying to seasonal jobs near me, Flower Crew in Vail, an assistant position at a summer camp, I even applied to be an aquatic invasive species educator. Then I found another position that I wanted to apply to, I genuinely thought it would be a long shot and I didn’t seriously think I’d get an interview. I found a listing from a gallery in Alaska, it offered free housing, a decent hourly wage at 40 hours a week, and they were looking for a couple to run the galleries for the summer.
My partner was at the time looking at staying on in the summer in Vail but certainly coming back in the winter season. I sent our resumes to the email address on the job listing and let it go from my mind. Until a day later when I got a reply and a request for a Zoom interview with my partner and I.
We had many conversations and finally settled on doing the interview and asking our questions and feeling the position out. It felt like we clicked with the gallerist, we really enjoyed chatting with her and after the interview was over we had pretty much decided that if offered, we would take it. Several days later we were offered the position. It is now April 5th. We were offered the job one week ago, I put my notice in at my current job, my last day will be April 30th. We fly to Anchorage, AK on May 2nd and head up to Talkeetna, AK on May 4th.
Do I think this will fix me? No, I learned that lesson. Do I feel guilt about leaving my family behind for the Summer? Yes I do, I still don’t know if it’s the right thing. But I think if I can just fall in love with the world again, if I can just do something different for a little while, I might learn something about myself.
Leadville wasn’t a failure, I don’t even regret moving here. I have learned so much from my time here. I have learned that maybe library work is not the right career path for me. I have learned that I need people, I am not the loner I thought I was. I have learned that I am loved, I am cared for and I matter to the people around me.
I have met with the psychiatrist, we’ve made small adjustments to my medication rituals and I feel better. I feel more equipped to jump into the deep end in Alaska. To open myself to new experiences, and to share this experience with my partner without feeling like I am a burden to those around me.
This section of my website will be kept with the intention of talking about the things I learn and experience in the wake of my decision to live a life more aligned with myself.
Till next time... Finley