Throwback: Do Good in Colorado

I wrote this post for an old blog I had when I first moved to Colorado. It’s three years later on the dot and I’m going through another big transition, so this post still is applicable to my life! I really enjoyed reading it, and I hope you will too. See another Colorado farewell post here. 

It’s almost TIME!

ELEVEN days until I leave the lovely mountain town of Bozeman and move to DEEEEEEENVER, Colorado!

Very exciting.

The only part is, I am leaving a life behind. I’m sure there are only good things ahead of me, but goodbyes are hard.  Like I’ve heard many say, a goodbye is a very poorly named ritual…is therereally anything good about it? Except the excitement of a new open door?

One good thing, besides all of the wonderful well wishes, is the advice I’ve been getting. Some of it isn’t so good, some of it is weird (although “always floss” is probably something I really should listen to) and one particular piece has really stuck with me, from a most unlikely source.

One of the cooks I work with a lot at the nursing home is in her mid-thirties, with several kids and several divorces under her belt. She’s smart and capable, but as she’s from rural West Virginia, she isn’t very educated. Yet, out of nowhere, she’s quite educated on life: the only thing she said to me by way of goodbye was “Do good in Colorado.”

“Do. Good.”

So simple, and for some reason it really just stuck with me. It’s all I’ve been thinking about.

I guess that, when it comes down to it, that’s what I want to do with my life. Sure, I want to be happy, and see the world, find a career (or careers) that I adore, make a home on the coast, surround myself with loved ones.

But under it all? I want to do good.

I may be stressed about the move (i.e. stressed about the sheer amount of packing I still need to do) and nervous about my job and slightly freaked out by moving in with a boy. I’ve been worried about what I am getting out of my life, what I want out of it, what’s going to happen when I’m older, how short and unpredictable life is.

Among all these worries, I forgot that the root of the human experience is tied to our interactions with humans, all lifeforms, and as a result, it is tied to our relationship with the planet and the entire universe, and our treatment of all of this.

So thanks, random cook, for reminding me that life really doesn’t have to be as complicated as I make it.

And that if you let yourself listen to the people around you, sometimes the most random sources can make it all startlingly clear.

Thanks for indulging this little blast from the past. It is Treat YoSelf Thursday, after all!