Though my heart gravitated towards the excitement of living in a completely new area, fear (packaged in practicalities: finishing my college degree and not losing a moment to do so, leaving a boyfriend, finding a job, making new friends…) suffocated any notions I came up with. Home I stayed.

Life went on and I began my career in education and got married so the anchor to the same geographic region sunk even deeper.

Then, life unraveled.

Completely, totally disintegrated (lots to tell here, but that’s not what THIS journey journal is about). This control freak finally realized, I’m not in control.

Along came Steve. We began to “hang-out” (is there such thing as pre-dating?) and spent hours talking about places we would love to travel, how exciting it would be to live in another country or simply another state. As our relationship became more serious, so did our talks of moving away. Steve had lived in beautiful Lake Tahoe, but we became obsessed with Colorado.