Sunday, September 20, 2009

Birthday Weather

The weather forecast printed in the “Vail Daily” for tomorrow, September 21, 2009, is bleak. The predicted temperature high is 53 and the low is 29. “Showers by day, mixing with snow at night” is written under a cartoon of a cloudy, rainy sky. Tomorrow is my 27th birthday and it is an appropriate forecast for the day.

My dad has told me that September 21, 1982 was a cold and rainy day. Fall in Michigan, like fall in Colorado, can be spectacular, with vibrant colors, clear blue skies, and temperatures in the 70s. Fall in Michigan, like fall in Colorado, can also be rather miserable, with cold, cloudy days that lead to that freezing rain and snow combination fondly referred to as sleet. The day I was born was a miserable Michigan fall day. It was the kind of weather my family refers to as Tracey’s Birthday Weather, which makes tomorrow’s forecast so appropriate.

It also feels appropriate because it reflects the way I feel at the moment. My birthday this year comes just days after saying good-bye to someone very special to me and I’m a little heartbroken. I’m also flat broke with no employment lined up for the near future. My first thought this morning was that tomorrow is the first birthday in 27 years that I’m not looking forward to.

But then I saw the forecast in the paper. A miserable Colorado fall day. Perfect. See because even though it reflects the way I feel at the moment I love Tracey’s Birthday Weather. I love an excuse to stay home all day wrapped in a blanket and to put on a sweater for the first time in months. I love that coffee just tastes better with the first hint of snow in the air. I find something familiar and comforting in a miserable fall day. It makes me feel safe. Secure. And I can’t think of a better way to feel tomorrow. Because even if I feel a little down at the moment I can’t deny that I’m looking forward to seeing what the next year holds, that I’m excited to live it and to grow and learn. So tomorrow I will enjoy Tracey’s Birthday Weather and I will feel safe, secure, and hopeful. And that is all worth looking forward to.

Friday, September 4, 2009

Journal Entry 02/09/05

This blog is not a personal diary for me. My journal, however, is. I use my journal as a place to rant, to document events, and to help me sort through my thoughts. The entries aren’t always well written and sometimes don’t even make much sense to me when I read them later. Some of the entries are deeply personal and I hope no one will ever read them. And some of them, like the one posted here, I think are worth sharing.

I was reading an old journal the other day, looking for ideas and inspiration and this entry made me smile. It made me think about who I was then and where I was at that point in my life. I wrote it after my first visit to Colorado before I decided to move to Vail.


February 9, 2005

I feel a bit like I’m cheating by writing in this at the moment. See I have another journal going right now that still has blank pages. One entry left of bank pages to be exact. When I fill those pages it will be the last entry in a book that has chronicled the past few years of my life. It’s a book full of rambling notes, stories and thoughts about life. Not much of a page-turner, but it’s my life nonetheless and it deserves a good ending.

It doesn’t feel right to start the next book without finishing the last. It’s tough, though, because my life is in limbo right now. I can see where I’m going and where I’ve been but I’m finding myself somewhere in the middle of it all. I’ve yet to close that last chapter, to experience the ending there, or perhaps I have but I haven’t realized it. In any case I’m not ready to write it.

As for the beginning of this next chapter, I suppose I’m writing it right now. I’m not quite sure why the beginning is easier to write than the ending. Perhaps it’s because the beginning is more exciting than the ending. Perhaps it’s because I’m scared of the ending. Perhaps it’s because I’ve already experienced this chapter’s first adventure. Because I’ve already learned from it, already grown from it and already changed from it. This volume begins after a six-day trip to Colorado with stops in Vail, Glenwood Springs, and Aspen.

I learned on that trip that people who vacation in Vail or Aspen have considerably more money than people who vacation in Florida (most of my vacations until recently were family road trips to Florida). The people I observed vacationing in high-end Colorado resort towns do not seem the type to pack up the minivan, throw on some Bermuda shorts and join the caravan of families trekking down to Orlando or Tampa for spring break. They wear fur coats, shop in stores like Prada, drink expensive wine, and spend vacation days skiing. People who vacation in Florida wear tacky floral shirts, shop in discount souvenir shops, sip brightly colored drinks, and spend vacation days getting sunburned at Sea World. This is not to say that those who spend time in Vail or Aspen do not like to spend a day at Sea World, shop for souvenirs, or wear Bermuda shorts. They just seem to go about it in a more expensive, classier way.

That observation is one of many from my recent trip, more stories to come later. Colorado was definitely different, though. Good different. The trip has left me thinking a lot about that place as a potential new home. We will see what happens in the months to come.