Birthday Reflections...

Yesterday was my birthday. Another year down in the volume that is my life. For some reason the whole day felt surreal. A rush of emotions about missing home, reflecting on the year past, enjoying the present with my friends out here, and just having it also be another day of work and routine. But these past few days leading up to, and on the day after, have me thinking about things in my life that have changed over my 34 years. 

One of the big ones, was the announcement yesterday of the Rocky Mountain News shuttering down and closing production. The announcement happened on my birthday :( The day I was born 34 years later will now go down for many reporters, photojournalists, columnists, and editors as the day they were told they were unemployed. Oddly, this news saddened me more than I initially thought it would. I found out, uniquely enough by status  updates from my Denver friends on Facebook. Postings about the last edition and how they would miss started popping up towards the end of yesterday and upon clicking on the Rocky website I found out it was true. The news made me reflect even more about my life and the years that had past leading up to this year's birthday. Growing up as a kid, that was MY Newspaper. My parents always subscribed to it, and I could remember reading it with my dad on the weekends, him persuading me to read some of the columnists he read. I remember seeing the funny political cartoons that ran and while I didn't always  understand why I was laughing, I laughed along with them. I remember in high school grabbing that paper the morning after a basketball game, checking the scores and postings, wanting to see my name in print. It shaped my thoughts and desires to become a journalist, and ultimately was one of the reasons I did decide to major in journalism at CU and then later at CSU when I went back to Fort Collins. I wanted to be a roving beat reporter, little notebook in hand, AP Guide at the ready, reporting for and about my city. While I never followed it, landing a job at that newspaper was always a little dream of mine.

Knowing it will not be there to open, to glance thru, to see the bright picture greet me at the newstand, as I plink in coins to buy one before breakfast on a visit back to Colorado, saddens me. The Rocky was a paper that helped remind me so much of what made my state great, and made me proud to be a Coloradan. But as a victim like so many other things in my list of past birthdays, past years growing up, it will fade into just a memory, just a longing in my heart to capture my youth, and what used to be.

As I sit and write this, another year older, maybe another year wiser (Maybe not?) and another year more sentimental, I can't help but think of all the things of my youth that no longer exist but in a trapped memory. Weekends as a kid going to Celebrity Sports Center with friends. Trips to the old Cooper theaters right next door to see movies on the HUGE screen. Birthdays that were marked with sleepovers filled with scary movies, ghost stories, Light as a Feather Stiff as a Board freak outs, and truth or dare. And later, in college, parties that involved the number of shots you could take, or the friends you had to go clubbing with to celebrate properly. All seem so far removed. Maybe that is what made yesterday so much more surreal. Maybe it was the distance being away from home that made those memories, those thoughts further from my reach than normal. Or maybe, it is just that I have hit an age where life gets more reflective, more thought provoking. Either way, I sit missing the triumphs of my youth, the beauty of my past and wonder what this next year will bring to have me reflecting on, in the year to come.

A new year, yet a new quiet

So, it's been a new year now for almost 2 months yet this is the first entry into my blog for 2009. The shame, the horror. In truth, it hasn't been for having things lacking to talk about. Quite the contrary. Whether it has been thoughts I've had of new years resolutions, comments about the world and the economy in the toilet,  or general Jess bantering, the truth is I haven't committed myself to write about it. So here is a bit of a catch up blog and the promise to be better about committing to a few paragraphs at least a couple of times during the week.

The new year has brought me both excitement and confusion, AGAIN. I remember growing up, somewhere in college realizing that most of the years that seem to have important things happen to me occur in odd ending years. I mean think about it. I learned to drive in 1991, graduated from college in 1997, got married in 2005. So somewhere my logic had me thinking this new year would bring something important to put in my milestone book. So far, 2 months in, nada. We'll see if this year brings about any worthwhile changes. While I am excited..the first few months have been blah at best. I want to be excited about what could be right around the corner, yet I am also confused on being apathetic to it as well. I guess time will tell.

One of the positive experiences that occurred towards the end of last year and has carried over into the beginning of this year, has been a new focus on writing. Not of my blog (obviously..which I really WILL get better at), but of my poetry. My sister in law, has graced me with such a gift it is beyond words. She's reminded me I am a writer, I am a matchmaker of lines, and again, one of my 'passions,' writing poetry has been reawakened in my sole. Thanks to her gift, I have viewed the world and the way that verses fall out of my pencil onto a paper in a new way. I have appreciated being able to focus some of my thoughts and feelings into a pencil that had been sitting dormant for many, many years. So this new year hopefully will bring a new rush of creativity I so desperately needed.

But this new year has brought a tiny bit of confusion. I will not lie. Since we came back from "home (Colorado)" in December, my thoughts have been with just that, being home. While I still value the adventure Doug and I are able to have out here, I would be denying my feelings by not saying that I miss Colorado more than I used to. I think having my family rally around my grandma, sick over the holidays, reminded me of how close I am to them. Yes, I am a 2 hr plane ride away, but I still miss them every day. I don't allow myself to get paralyzed by sadness or regret. The truth is, I am extremely grateful, more than Doug will ever know for this experience to move somewhere else, try something else, be someone else in our trips out to California here thus far. I really do feel like I have been able to push boundaries and experiences I probably never would have allowed myself to experience 5-10 years ago. It's helped me to prove to myself that I am a much stronger person that I let on, and no matter how much I fear change, I can handle and adapt.

Yet the confusion is that I can never really let go of home. No matter what I do to immerse myself here in, be it my "somewhat obsession" with running, my work, or trying to see what we can of California, life somewhere else is never far away in my mind. The longer I am away from it, the more critically aware I realize I am in differences, between the Jess of California, and the Jess of Colorado. And there are many times where all I want is to go back to being Jess of Colorado. I guess time, and circumstance will determine that eventually.

Phew, went really whiny there about missing Colorado huh? Just being fair. It isn't that I don't love the people and the life at times out here (I mean come on...80s in January when back home many of you were suffering with 30s), but Colorado is who I am, what I am...and I don't think moving to another state will ever change that, no matter how hard I, or someone else tries to change that.

Ok..enough whining about Colorado :) On to the positives of this year. So, so far in these short 2 1/2 months I am on target again to run in a good number of races before year end. So far...I have 3 under my belt. Including one that I am really glad I did last Sunday, the Chinatown 5K. It was probably the most challenging run I have completed, because most of it was totally hills in Chinatown, downtown LA. Definitely worth braving the cold and winds and spitting rain with a few of my running peeps to challenge ourselves. I look forward to more races this year, and working hard to challenge myself. I am hoping on doing another 1/2 marathon if not 2, by the end of the year.

So, a bit far into the new year..but the first official "blog" for me is in the books. I will vow to not be so quiet in the weeks and months to come!