Spiritual Detox - Redoux

I originally posted this in mid-March. But after a few days, maybe a week, I removed it. Maybe I thought it was too dark. Maybe I didn’t like what it said about my state of mind at that time. I’m not sure, but I decided that I wanted to present a more positive view on this blog, and this post didn’t fit.

But as I’ve been having some writer’s block lately, I decided to look at some old posts for inspiration, and I came across this. I thought about what had led me to write it, and I realized that some of the same motivations were still at play, but in a slightly little different way. And my reaction has been different. I’ll get to that after the original post, but in the meantime, here’s what I posted in March:

17 March 2016

Today I began a five-day juice detox program. Each morning, I receive a bag with eight specially-prepared bottles of mixed juices, and I drink them at hour-and-a-half intervals throughout the day. Overall, it’s about two liters of juice to keep me going each day. I can also drink water and green tea. That’s all.

The idea is to cleanse my system of accumulated toxins, feel better and, of course, lose some weight. I did a three-day program a little over a month ago, and it worked pretty well. So I am looking forward to the results of this one.

This program is intended to cleanse toxins from the physical body, which is a good thing and something I need. My eating habits are certainly not the worst in the world, but they haven’t been the best either. So I know I have a lot of crap that needs to be flushed out of my digestive system, my circulatory system, my muscles and bones, right down to the individual cells.

But as I was walking home from work in the late afternoon, it occurred to me that what I need even more is a detox program to cleanse the various toxins that have accumulated in my soul. I think there may be more poison there than in all the cells of my body combined.

To the best of my knowledge, there is not a juice combination that can do that.

For more than a week now, I’ve been especially upset, nervous, depressed and angry. Actually, it’s been happening for a lot longer than a week; it’s just that the past week has been especially bad. I find myself being super judgmental toward the people I see on the streets; I see stupid people everywhere, and under my breath I curse them as idiots and morons. And I obsess in my mind about certain problems to the point that it almost makes me crazy.

Perhaps more than almost.

I have always liked to think of myself as a basically positive person and as someone with a spiritual nature. But lately I wonder if that’s just a crock of bull, a lie I’ve been telling myself along with a whole lot of other lies that just seem nicer than reality.

Sometimes I think I can actually feel the light that should be warmly shining out from my spirit being slowly engulfed by the cold darkness of this toxic tide. And it scares me. When the light is finally snuffed out, there will be nothing left. It feels like a slow, painful death.

And I try to understand why it is happening, what factors are to blame. Is it the nature of my life in this city, this country? I’ve written before that I’m sort of a fish out of water – a country boy living in a crowded foreign city. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe living for so many years in a different culture, with a different language, has affected me worse than I have ever realized.

Or maybe there is some unseen environmental influence that has been eating my insides away all these years here. It could be something in the air, the water or the food.

It could be my reaction to the changes I see in the world and our civilization (if we even have the right to call it that). I watch too much news, and that’s enough to drive anyone mad. As I see people around me being turned into dumbed-down, uncivil automatons staring mindlessly into mobile devices everywhere, I wonder what the future holds, and I am sad.

Maybe it’s just the loneliness of my own life. I work, I come home to a small apartment where I live alone, and my contact with the outside world is often limited to what shows up on a damned computer screen. That can’t be good. I have fewer real friends to turn to than I used to have, and there hasn't been a true love in my life for a very, very long time. Those are the things that help shield you from spiritual toxins, and I don't have that shield.

More and more, I think that the growing darkness in my soul is simply the result of my fear of getting older and all the little horrors that come along with that, horrors like the changes I see in the mirror or in photos and the slow, gradual breakdown of the body that had served me pretty well until recently. I look at what I’ve become, and I wonder what the hell happened! When did I become like this and how can I make it go away? I can’t make it “go away,” and therein lies part of the problem, one of the sources of the darkness.

Maybe it’s realizing that rather than accept all these things and learn to live with them, I deceive myself with impossible dreams – dreams of regained youth, dreams of finally achieving things I let slide for too many years, dreams of making a difference, and dreams of being loved. And when the improbability of those dreams rises up and smacks me in the face, a little more darkness invades my soul.

Recently I've been feeling like I am losing a special treasure, and I can't seem to stop it from leaving me. But it's a treasure that I really never had, which only exaggerates the frustration. And the darkness grows.

I don’t know what the source is. Maybe it’s all of those things and more. But I know that I do need a spiritual detox before it’s too late. I need to find a way to purge the dark toxins and let some light shine forth again. I need to get to a happy place.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about going to someplace like the west coast of Ireland and just spending a bunch of days simply sitting and looking out at the ocean. That sounds rather nice.  Maybe it would be a good start.

Spring is coming, biking is coming, and more sunshine. That will help. But I know I need to find something else. And it won't come in little plastic bottles.

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Back to the Present

So that was the original post. I felt pretty down last March, and I didn’t like my reaction to it. In retrospect, I know exactly what the catalyst was. All the things I mentioned in the original post played some part, but it was a disappointing personal situation that pulled me into the darkness. This is often the case because such situations can hit you at such a deep and personal level. But we don’t have to let them have such an effect on us. The fact that I did is my own fault.

The post caught my attention when I read it again the other day because almost immediately after I returned from my trip to the USSA a few weeks ago, I found myself hit with a replay of the same situation. But my reaction has been a lot different this time, and much better. This time, I have been pretty much able to just let it go. It bothered me at first, of course, but that “bother” didn’t last long, and it didn’t go deep. 

During my first weekend back, I was able to enjoy the really great company of friends for at least a part of each day for four consecutive days. Good talk and a lot of smiles raised my spirit and took my attention away from any negatives. Friends are perhaps the most important ingredient in a great recipe for a spiritual detox.

And that came on top of a relaxing and enjoyable trip back to spend time with friends and loved ones in Colorado. Every day was a (Rocky Mountain) high. I didn’t think about work or problems; I just enjoyed the time I had and the people I was with. Those two weeks of positive feelings around friends and family strengthened my spirit and made me more able to resist any negative influences. That certainly added some healthy ingredients to the recipe.

Plus, it’s summer, the weather has been good, and that always makes life better. Being able to enjoy the sunshine of late June and early July is worlds better than the gloom of March when winter is still doing its best to hang on. And I’ve been able to exercise in one way or another every day, from gym workouts to biking to just walking to and from work. Nice weather and exercise are more great ingredients for a spiritual detox.

But perhaps most important, this time I was able to simply choose to not let the situation get to me. I had the strength to just put my head in the right place. I was able to get to the point where I could just turn away, say, “I don’t care,” and let any negative feelings slide off my back. Maybe I finally had had enough, or maybe it’s just recognizing that there is no point in continuing to deal with a negative situation when there are plenty of positive ones to pay your attention to.

And we can make positive situations for ourselves. In fact, we should be doing this for ourselves all the time. The photo at the beginning of this piece shows someone getting some kind of spiritual energy from a rising (or setting) sun by the ocean. While that kind of inspiration may certainly help, it's not essential. Still, it can help, and being in such a place is an example of creating a positive situation for yourself. It's something I plan to do for sure this summer (experience a sunrise or sunset by the ocean). Ireland or Portugal are in my sights.

The point of reposting my March effort with the extra commentary is that happiness really is a choice. Choosing to turn your back on the darkness and just stay in the warmth and light is the best thing you can do. It’s not always easy, but it’s always worth it. It’s freedom, and freedom is always a good thing.

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It's a Mystery!

I just don’t understand what’s wrong with the local guys here.

Over the past three days, I’ve had the pleasure of having dinner or lunch with three amazing young women in their late 20s or early 30s. Each of them is beautiful, smart, funny, deep, and perhaps most important, each is a genuinely good person.

And each of them is single, which is the part that I don’t understand.

What in the world is wrong with the local guys that treasures such as these girls can go for so long without being discovered and “claimed”? Each of them is what we would call a “catch,” so why haven’t more guys been clamoring to cast their nets in these girls’ directions? I just don’t get it.

And it’s not just these three; they are just the tip of the iceberg. I know or have known so many girls here who should have guys worshiping at their altars and begging matrimony. In my close circle, these are just three of many. So again, I just don’t get it.

You might suggest, I suppose, that these girls are just very selective and – unlike a lot of women – are holding out for a man who is more than just “slightly better than a monkey.” And to be sure, being so selective suggests that in their hearts they know they are special – that they do have an understanding of their innate worth and know that they deserve the very best. But still, there must be plenty of guys around this city who are worthy of such women, can recognize how wonderful these girls are, and would do what it takes to make them part of their lives.

Some of these girls have expressed a certain amount of frustration and even sadness that they have gotten to the “thirtyish zone” and are still not hitched; they’re honest about it. And it saddens me when I see someone who dearly wants a family and is really a “catch,” but hasn’t been “caught” yet. This is all the more the case when I look around at the really bad ones who have started families, only to find turmoil and dysfunction in those families, much of which they create themselves.

On the other hand, I often hear some of these girls say things like, “Well, I am just really focused on work and my career, and I’m not ready for any permanent relationship anyway. So it’s all fine.”  Maybe so, but very often when we have encountered failure or frustration in something, we claim that we are really focused on something else simply as a cover. If something hasn’t worked out like we had hoped, it’s easier to just say that it wasn't important to us anyway.

But I can’t imagine anyone – especially an amazing woman like each of these friends of mine – NOT wanting to be loved, to have a partner she can rely on, open herself up to and be opened to in return, someone who would always be there for her when she needs it, but able to give her the freedom and support she needs to accomplish her own goals in life. I think almost all of us want a relationship in our lives that is like a safe, snug harbor from the stormy seas of life around us. We sometimes say that it doesn’t matter to us if we find ourselves alone, but I think that at some level – either close to the surface or deep inside – it does matter.

And it never has to come down to a choice between a relationship OR a career. The two are completely compatible. It only depends on the people involved. Those who really want it all and are ready to do the work can absolutely have it all.

For me, this is merely an observation. Unfortunately for me, I am too old to be anything more than a “friend” to girls such as these. So there’s not much I can do about it except to sincerely hope that each of these beautiful friends of mine eventually (but sooner, rather than later) finds precisely what she needs to be truly happy. Some others have, and I’ve been ecstatic for them.

But… I have to admit that when I spend time with some of these girls, look into their eyes, listen to them talk, and admire all the beauty they radiate – internally and externally – I find myself wishing that there was some way that I could be a much, much younger man. Then my only dilemma would be choosing which heart I would devote myself to winning. 

Well, actually it wouldn't be a dilemma; I DO know which it would be (but I'll never tell).

It’s a pity that the guys here who are in a position to do that “winning” don’t seem to realize what they are missing. If a burned-out old fart like me can see it so clearly, why can't they?

To me, it’s really a mystery.

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And so it Continues

Thursday, 9 June, 2016. I am just past the half-way point of this Colorado visit.  In less than a week, I’ll be on my way back to Ukraine. 

Jet lag has affected me a bit more than usual on this trip. It took me about four days before I could sleep pretty much through the night. And even now, I tend to wake up much earlier than I want; last night I woke up around 2 a.m. and was only able to doze from time to time until the alarm went off. I am sure that I’ll be fully acclimated by the time I fly back to Ukraine so that I can deal with the reverse jet lag all over again.

Hooray for Driving!

One of the things I look forward to the most whenever I visit the USSA is driving. I’ve written about the joy of driving several times in the past, especially in this post after a trip to Italy. On my past trips, I’ve had sedans like the Ford Fusion or Nissan Altima, but this time I have a Jeep Cherokee. The current version of the Cherokee is little more than a car. They call it a “crossover” SUV, but this thing could never go off road like the old Cherokee could. Still, it’s a little cooler than a standard sedan.

I don’t know how many miles I have put on the car during the past week, but it’s been a lot. One daughter lives more than an hour’s drive north of where I am staying, while the other lives about an hour south. Plus I tooled around in the mountains all day Monday. I’ve already refilled the gas tank twice. Still, driving is such a joy, that I don’t care how many miles I travel or how many gallons of gas I use. After this trip, I probably won’t drive again until the next time I return (or possibly in Western Europe).

The Lure of the Hills

On Monday, I took a drive up to visit old haunts in the high country. To me, the mountains are Colorado, not the Denver metro area. I drove by my old home in the mountain community of Bailey, but I wasn’t able to take a good look; the current owner was home and sitting out on the front porch. It was a bit disappointing to be able to do no more than just drive past the house.

Since I was already as far up as Bailey, I decided to go further and drive up to Kenosha pass, which is at an elevation of 10,000 feet and provides access into the large valley known as South Park (yes, the one made famous by the television cartoon). Even before I lived in Bailey, I used to camp and hike in a wilderness area just west of the pass.

Being in the mountains is always a high point for me. It’s what Colorado is all about. I got out of the car at several points, walked a bit, and just took in the feeling. If there is one thing that can really draw me back to Colorado, it’s being in the mountains. It’s a pity that I won’t have an opportunity to camp, enjoy sitting around a night campfire, and really live the mountain experience. Maybe next time.

Big America

Last weekend I went to two events where I was harshly reminded of why most of the world thinks of Americans as being grossly overweight. I am definitely overweight myself, but I saw a number of people at those events who made me feel positively skinny. I won’t get into insulting details about the people I saw, but several of them really amazed me – and not in a good way. And Colorado is consistently rated as the fittest state.

But it’s not like everyone is waddling around with the equivalent of an extra person attached. Although it’s clear that there are a lot of Americans who are very obese and in terrible physical shape, there are also many, MANY Americans who are extremely devoted to their health and nutrition. It depends on where you are and who is around you. While I did see a lot of out-of-shape people at the rodeo on Sunday, I saw far fewer yesterday in Boulder.

There is no doubt that some aspects of the American lifestyle – like driving everywhere, eating fast food, etc. – tend to create “bigger” and less healthy people. But there are plenty of people who take care of themselves too. Gyms and health clubs are big business, and there is a lot of awareness of health and fitness. And even beyond that, there are many who go the extra mile to develop themselves as top-flight athletes.

I attended a softball tournament on Saturday for girls 18 years old and under, and I was blown away by how good they were. They train, they practice, and they hone their natural talents. They are really dedicated to the sport and have an affinity for fitness that will serve them well all their lives.

Looking at Myself

For my part, seeing all those out-of-shape people over the weekend just reminded me of how badly I’ve treated my own body and how I don’t want to end up that far gone. I hope I still have a chance – at my advanced age – to pare off the pounds (or kilos) and keep myself in good enough shape to stay active for a few years longer. I know it’s possible.

To that end, I bought a sport watch yesterday. I needed a new watch anyway, and this seemed like a good way to go. I still have to learn all the ins and outs of it, but if it helps motivate me to move and work out, then it’s a good investment. I allowed myself too many “guilty pleasures” during my first week here, and I feel it. For the rest of my time here, I am shifting back: less eating and more moving. Yesterday was a good start – I began with cereal and blueberries and finished with a salad.

The City

Yesterday I drove into Denver to meet one of my daughters. I didn’t feel comfortable in the city. The heavy traffic on I-70 made me nervous, and once I got off the highway I felt like I was in a foreign place. I was in the north end of Denver, which is quite a bit different from the south suburban areas I’ve know for much of my time in the metro area. The streets and buildings are different, the people are different, the lifestyles are different, and the feeling is different.

I will delve into these differences more in a future post, but what it suggested to me is that I definitely would not want to live in the city. I know this to be true in Kharkiv too. I’ve grown accustomed to it, but not really happy.

I am a country boy, not a city person. If coming back to Colorado some day meant a return to a mountain community, closeness to nature, peace and quiet, etc., then it would be great. But if it was just replacing one city (Kharkiv) with another, it would make little difference. I would still be a fish out of water.

And fish die when they are out of water.

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Thank You, Stephen King

Cristin Bruggeman is going to be a successful novelist in the not-too-distant future. Who knows – maybe she’ll even be famous with adoring fans anxiously awaiting her next work, adapted movies, and the whole nine yards.

Cristin is my daughter, and her potential to become a great writer is one thing I like to believe she inherited from dear old dad. But she is way ahead of her dad in realizing that potential. She is wrapping up rewrites on her second novel and has interest from at least one publisher. And she already has an idea about her next project.

Dad, on the other hand, still has little more than “concepts.” If things continue on their present course, “potential” will be dad’s only claim to fame.

I’m not going to delve too much into the reasons why so many years of potential have gone unfulfilled. It’s all in the past anyway; can’t change that. But it is a source of embarrassment and sadness. For a long time, I suppose, I was just uninspired, or too busy with other things like working for a living. I know that there was a time when I decided that I just wasn’t good enough, so why bother trying?

And for some years closer to the present day, I guess I looked at all those lost years, reasoned that there just wasn’t much time left, and figured there was no point in trying if I hadn’t been able to budge myself to write – really write – for the majority of my adult life. It’s like a lot of things in recent years: I’ve been in a “it’s almost over anyway, so why bother?" mode.

That’s a bad mode to be in. It affects everything in your life, and not in a good way. I thought about that a bit earlier this morning while looking at my utterly disgusting naked form in a full-length mirror (damned hotel). But I got over that pretty well after I returned to the miracle of clothing. Still, I really need to do something about that disgusting naked form, while there still might be time.

Enter Stephen King

I have never read one of Stephen King’s books. I should slap myself for that. Maybe I was just never interested much in his particular genre of horror-mystery (or mystery-horror… whatever). But he is a self-made master of the novel, and to have not read at least some of his work is a kind of literary heresy.

A few years ago, Cristin gave me one of his books as a birthday gift – not a novel, but a book he wrote about writing. I was appreciative, and I took a cursory look through some of the pages. Then it found a place on my bookshelf to collect dust along with my Russian-language texts and a few other assorted books that I thought I’d like to read but rarely have found time for.

A couple of months ago I took some small steps toward renewing my interest in writing. Maybe it was a New Year resolution thing (I don’t really remember) or maybe it was the encouragement of a friend and a feeling that I’d like to reward that encouragement with some real effort – finally. I took a serious look at my old story ideas that had been collecting virtual mold and even came up with a few new ones. After doing a little survey, I settled on one to start.

But my first foot forward was still not finding solid ground. I pumped out an opening scene and then went blank, a victim of my own writer’s block, work demands, and the lure of the Internet. As I wrote in a recent blog post about writing, I was still finding it very hard to get myself moving with the requisite sense of urgency.

About a month ago, I took that Stephen King book off the shelf and started reading. The first half of the book was a partial autobiography of King’s early years. It was interesting, but not riveting. I made slow progress with the book. But the second half has hooked me.

In the second half, King gives so much great information and advice about writing that I’ve been almost stunned. I only have a bit left to read, and I’ll probably finish it before I depart Frankfurt for Denver (I am flying to Frankfurt now). As I’ve been taking in all of King’s ideas and sage advice, I’ve resolved to do three things: 1) boil it all down to a bullet list of the things I need to put into action and keep in mind as I write, 2) create an effective writing space once I return to Kharkiv, and 3) decide who my “Ideal Reader” is.

The Advice

King discusses obvious things like the need to read a lot and write a lot (I’ve been deficient in both areas), notice what’s good or bad in other writers’ work, develop vocabulary, avoid bad constructions, and be correct but not overly anal about grammar (which I know I am – anal, that is).

He also showed me a lot about story vs. plot and how one can get so focused on outlining a plot and sketching characters that the real story gets lost. And he gives a great formula and some practical rules for doing the first draft and then the second. He talks about writing the first draft quickly with the “door closed,” letting it stew for a month or two, and then going to the second draft with the door open. Great advice.

King introduced me to the idea of the “Ideal Reader,” one particular person for whom you sort of unconsciously write the story. The Ideal Reader is the first person to read the draft when it’s ready and the one you trust most to give you the kind of feedback that helps you to make effective corrections. I think I know who my Ideal Reader is, but I have to stew on that a bit.

Anyway, Stephen King’s advice has come to me at just the right moment, a moment when I’m getting more serious about my writing than at any point in my life. It’s true that I’ve let way too much time go to waste, and there’s no telling how much time I have left, but hell, I could have been hit by a pineapple cart when I was 27. So who can say really how much time any of us has. Might was well get busy.

So, I am very thankful to Stephen King. And in gratitude, I fully intend to start reading his work as soon as I can download a few of them to my Kindle.

And I am especially thankful to – and proud of – my prodigal daughter, Cristin. Maybe someday, if I work hard and apply myself, dad can walk in his daughter’s footsteps.

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Side Note: For those who think I might be siding with a "liberal loon" for displaying my appreciation for Stephen King's talents, I want to be clear that while his political views are almost 180-out from mine, that has nothing to do whatsoever with his mastery of the writing craft. He and I would argue until the cows come home about politics, but that has nothing at all to do with the craft of storytelling in print. We shouldn't refuse to acknowledge genius just because we don't like the person's political views.

And So It Begins

The alarm goes off at 2 a.m. Yes, that’s right – two frickin’ o’clock in the early morning. Even birds aren’t dumb enough to wake up this early. I have a second alarm set for 2:15, just in case I’m too numb to respond to the first one.

This was one of those moments in which you simply can NOT oversleep. And I had put in a pair of brand-new foam earplugs when I got into bed. The airport hotel is not exactly a place of divine silence, and I am easily distracted when trying to sleep. I’ve been using earplugs at home almost every night to combat the various noises that attack my bedroom and improve my odds of actually sleeping. I’m addicted now.

I am starting out on another trip to visit family and friends in the USSA. My flight from Kyiv to Frankfurt is at 06:30. It’s 04:45 now, and I am all checked in and relaxing in an airport priority lounge. Here it’s actually quite calm and relaxing, a far cry from the normal hub-hub of the departure concourse with lots of people, lots of noise, and terminally uncomfortable seats.

As a result of opening some premium accounts at my Kharkiv bank, I got a Priority Pass card, which give me access to the business lounge. I need to send a thank you to my personal account manager at the bank. There are only a few people here, the food and coffee are free, it’s nicely air-conditioned, the rest rooms are clean, and the seats are comfortable enough that I can even lie down if I want. Nice!

It’s early Tuesday morning in Kyiv. I’ll spare all the flight details, but by the time I arrive in Denver, get a rental car, and finally make my way to my friends’ home, this part of the trip will have taken about 24 hours. But at least it is starting out nicely in this lounge, and I have a 10-hour direct flight from Frankfurt to Denver, which is nice also. I’ve definitely had longer, and worse, trips, so this will be a piece of cake.

But back to that hotel.

I took a short hop from Kharkiv to Kyiv’s Boryspil Airport Monday afternoon. The airport hotel is only a 10-minute walk from the terminal, but the humidity in Kyiv yesterday was high enough that a soaking-wet sponge would actually suck moisture OUT of the air (and the same this morning), so I worked up a bit of a sweat walking there.

The Boryspil Airport Hotel should be regarded as a last resort. It’s cheap, and you get what you pay for. The basic rooms are small and have no air conditioning. Mine faced the setting western sun, and when I got there the drapes were open. It was hot and stuffy inside. Somehow, the humidity manages to get into the room, but the cooler outside temps do not. More sweat.

This immediately called for an open window (glass door, actually), and a trip to the restaurant for a salad and a couple of glasses of wine. Calling it a “restaurant” is being kind, but it sufficed.

The bed is adequate for one normal sized person, which I am not. But I made due. I had to take a cold shower first and then kick off most of the covers. But with the drapes closed and earplugs in, I managed to sleep for a few hours.

The shower is a thing of wonder. Anyone wider than me would NOT be able to fit into the shower stall. And even someone smaller than me would find it difficult to move around comfortably while taking a shower (children and dwarfs excepted).

At one point, I dropped my soap. It was impossible to bend over to pick it up until I finished the shower, pried myself out of the stall, and was able to reach in from outside to pick it up.

But at least the water temperature was, well… warm. For my before-bed shower, I wanted cold water anyway. But for shaving and showering in the morning, hot would have been good.

Despite the humidity, I chose to walk to the terminal instead of waiting 15 minutes for a shuttle bus. It was quiet, light was just starting to break, and the birds were finally waking up (lazy critters that they are).

Check-in, security and passport control were a breeze, and here I am. It’s 05:40 now. Boarding begins in about 20 minutes. Time to finish my latte, hit the head, and make my way down to the gate.

I’m off.

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Note: I have not had enough coffee to cast a keen editorial eye on my work, so if there are mistakes in the above text, I disavow any responsibility... for now.

The Heart is Where?

An old saying holds that “home is where the heart is.” But sometimes the larger question is, “where is your heart?”

I started thinking about this last weekend as I was contemplating my early June trip to visit family and friends in Colorado. For most of my adult life, “home” has meant Colorado. Whether it was Fort Collins during my college days, metro Denver for many years thereafter, or my mountain home in Bailey for the three years before I came to Ukraine, Colorado was the place I always returned to, the place that beckoned my soul, the place I happily called home.

But recently, I’ve not been so sure.

The “Home” that Wasn’t

I grew up in eastern Massachusetts, and although it was the only home I knew in my first 18 years, I never felt like I completely belonged there. I left as soon as possible for navy adventures in places like Guam, California and six years in Japan. And while none of those places could take on the mantle of “home,” I still didn’t really feel a home connection to the place of my birth. In my early years, I could call Massachusetts “home” for lack of a better alternative, but it never had any genuine meaning for me.

After I established myself in Colorado, I would – I could – never again link Massachusetts and home in the same sentence. When my parents referred to my visiting them as “coming home,” I would always refer to the place I grew up as “there,” "your place" or “coming for a visit.” It was always important to me to make it clear that their “home” was not mine. I spent two years back there in the mid-1990s when my father was sick (my mother had already passed away), but I always thought of that as a temporary situation, sort of like living in exile. After my father passed away, and as soon as I was able, I hightailed it back to the mountains.

The Home that Was

I fell in love with Colorado while finishing my degree at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. That small city hadn’t yet become the overcrowded, traffic-ridden mess that it is today, and living there felt perfect. I had a motorcycle and a bicycle, and “Fort Fun” was perfect for either mode of two-wheeling. I could hop on my Silver Wing and zoom off into the mountains on the spur of the moment. It was the ultimate feeling of freedom and being close to nature.

Fort Collins itself was beautiful enough that one didn’t even need to be in the mountains. Bicycling along the Poudre River – or just about anywhere else in town – was a joyful, near-nature experience. During my almost three years there, I was a runner; from spring to fall (and sometimes even in the cold of winter) I ran several times per week, never less than four miles and often as much as eight. I had a 28-inch waist, and I was in the best shape of my life.

In Fort Collins I had marvelous friends and more wonderful experiences than I can count. We were always doing something fun, from summer dinner parties and barbecues to dancing at local clubs or going off into the hills. It was truly one of the best times of my life. But of course, our college days usually feel like that.

Moving to Denver after graduation and getting into the regular working grind did take a bit of the luster off everything, but even living in that city was far better than city life just about anywhere else. Denver was a newer city, younger and more vibrant than anything on the East Coast, and at that time it wasn’t so crowded. Coloradans seemed to have a good sense of values, something that meant a lot to me. And perhaps best of all, the wild nature of the Rocky Mountains was always just a short drive away.

And to take advantage of that wild nature, I became a four-wheeler, first with a tough little Ford Bronco II and later with a couple of great Nissan trucks. I splurged on a new mountain bike and put a lot of miles on it over the years, both on the many metro-area bike paths and off-road in the mountains. Although I didn’t run as much anymore, I became a regular at several health clubs, and for a while I played a lot of organized softball.

At the health clubs I developed a great circle of friends with whom I had a lot of wonderful times and made many memories. Some of those friendships have been the longest-lasting in my life, persevering to this day even though I’ve been largely absent for the past eight years.

Perhaps best of all was my three years living in a mountain retreat home in Bailey, a little hamlet nestled in the foothills southwest of Denver. I’ve written a lot about that place, so I won’t go into great detail about it except to reiterate that it was the most peaceful place I’ve called home in my entire life. I had nature all around me all the time. It was almost perfect.

And even before I had that house, I always had the mountains nearby for camping, hiking and just experiencing nature in all its beauty. Colorado had always been good for my soul.

“Home” Away from Home?

For the past eight years, I have lived full-time as an expatriate in eastern Ukraine. With a completely different culture and language, and a climate more like Massachusetts than Colorado, it’s hard to say that Kharkiv is really “home.” Yet somehow it has managed to keep me here far longer than I ever would have thought.

Perhaps what keeps me here is just that I’ve grown accustomed to my life here, the work I do, the people I know. I mentioned in my post, Ten Years of Ukraine, that during my first visit I had the feeling that I could live here. Needing a change, I went with that feeling, and I am still living it. But I still can’t truly equate Kharkiv to “home.” Something is missing.

Maybe this is the curse of being an expat: you never have a real sense of being “home.” Not feeling grounded, at home, in their native countries is a big part of what sends expats off to seek fulfillment elsewhere. Sure, there is that romantic notion of going off for great adventures, but I’d wager that what sends most expats off to other lands is a feeling of detachment from what they had always been told was home.

And this brings me back to my original question: Is Colorado really home for me anymore?

Homewrecking

During my visits to Colorado in recent years, I’ve seen changes that sadden me. But in truth, it’s been happening longer than just the past five or so years. Metro Denver has turned into an unsightly sprawl of suburban homes and retail businesses, busy roads and masses of people. Always more and more people. The main roads into the mountains, which were crowded enough 10 or even 20 years ago, seem to be absolutely choked now, especially on weekends.

Increasingly, these people fill up the cities, and a number of them move into wilder areas, creating little communities where there used to be wildlife – wildlife that still feels that these areas are their homes. When a mountain lion, faced with shrinking habitat, wanders into some new crackerjack-box housing community in the foothills and makes off with someone’s precious little chihuahua, poodle or pomeranian, they immediately call for the authorities to track down and kill the cat. Bears who scrounge garbage barrels where there used to be wild glades of berry bushes are labeled nuisances and either relocated or killed. The people talk about “living close to nature,” but when nature does what comes naturally, they want to extinguish it. Hypocrites!

Admittedly, I also was a migrant to Colorado from another part of the country, so my rant against all these later migrants might seem a bit hypocritical at first glance. I understand that. But I loved Colorado from the beginning, and I never wanted to change Colorado to "suit" me. When I lived in the mountains and had elk, deer, foxes, and even lions and bears around, I was ecstatic. I was careful with my trash to avoid conflicts with the native residents, especially bears, and I viewed myself as a guest on their land.

During my first years in Colorado, drivers seemed to be pretty polite and considerate. But as an increasing number of people migrated from other places (especially Californians), not only have the snow and mountain driving skills of the population diminished, but road courtesy has been replaced with four-wheeled idiocy and an “it’s my road, get out of my way” attitude.

Over the decades, Colorado – and particularly metro Denver – has veered to the political left. It’s amazing how many people from other states, especially California, became dissatisfied with the mess liberal government policies made of their states and decided to escape to Colorado. And then once in Colorado, they supported the same kind of fiscal and social actions that had eventually rendered their previous homes unlivable.

Nowhere has this more apparent than with the way illegal immigration has been handled. In the late ‘80s and through the ‘90s, we had to put up with the increasing phone message, “Press one for English, presione dos para Español.” And it got worse as self-checkout lines at supermarkets began doing the same. Legal immigrants didn’t need that; it was done for the benefit of people who had broken the law and crowded into the country illegally. Businesses and even the government (at all levels) were (and are) enabling lawbreakers. Denver and other cities became “sanctuary cities,” governments that defy federal law and allow illegal aliens to be protected from prosecution for their law-breaking.

And why not? The federal government doesn’t care about the immigration laws anyway. The United States is supposed to be a nation of laws, but more and more, government – from federal to local – seems to believe that laws only apply against their political adversaries. It sounds like Ukraine.

And, yeah, Colorado was the first state to legalize recreational use of marijuana, which a lot of more conservative people think is a step toward drug hell. But I am more ambivalent about it than anything else. To be honest, being more of a libertarian, it makes sense to me to legalize and tax it.

But that aside, maybe this leftward move is the way the majority of people living in Colorado want it now. Perhaps the movement of people from other places has permanently changed the Colorado I have loved. It could be that I just don't fit in there anymore.

Often, I think that when the time comes for me to return to the U.S. (and I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately), Colorado might not be the place for me anymore. Maybe some little mountain town would still be OK. But I have my doubts. It’s occurred to me lately that perhaps Wyoming, Montana, Idaho or Utah would better suit me now. I don’t know a soul in those places, but maybe that doesn’t matter.

Where is the Heart?

We equate the heart to our feelings of love, generally meaning love for the special people in our lives. When we say that “home is where the heart is,” does it mean a place that we love? Is it about loving gorgeous mountain vistas, pastoral countrysides or the awesome power of an ocean coast? Or is it about our closest people, the ones we love most, being in that place?

If it is about the people, then what does my complete disdain for Massachusetts in my early years say about my relationship with my family? I guess that answer is pretty clear.

Colorado, perhaps, was both about love for the place and the people closest to me. At the beginning of my Colorado life I got divorced, and although there were a few short relationships along the way, there was never anyone who took my heart and kept it, and gave me hers in return. Once I thought there was, but I was wrong.

Friends filled the gap partially, but even the truest of friends can’t be all that you need. Long, dark nights alone still leave a void – a void that makes the heart want to search for something more. And a wanderer is born, an expat.

Family for me now is my two daughters, whom I do love with all my soul, and the beautiful families they are raising. But divorce in their young years, followed by living in different places, created a bit of a chasm. And now their lives are all about their own families, which is as it should be. One lives in Colorado but may well leave for another place in the near future. The other lives in Europe. So in the family respect, the Colorado cupboard is more or less bare.

Colorado still holds a significant spot in my mind and soul, but I am not sure that my heart is really there anymore.

And the same is true for Ukraine. I have friends, very good friends. But they are just friends, and there is still that void. That empty place should move me to pick up and expatriate to some other place. And I have thought about that: Ireland, Argentina… who knows? But maybe I’ve just become tired of searching. Maybe I’ve given up. 

It makes no difference; all I know is that when I look objectively at my life here, I can’t honestly say that my heart is here. Every time I allow myself to believe that perhaps my heart has found a home here, I get jolted back to the reality that it hasn’t.

It seems that my heart is not anchored to any particular place or person. Maybe I've become too accustomed to the void. Maybe my heart has died.

Knowing it by Heart

In a few days, I will be back I Colorado, the place in the world that I know the best. For a little more than two weeks, I’ll spend time with both my daughters and their families, as well as those long-tenured friends who have never given up on me even though I’ve been little more than a Facebook presence in their lives for the past eight or nine years.

I’ll enjoy the drive back and forth between the Denver and Colorado Springs metro areas, and I hope I’ll get up into the mountains a time or two. With any luck, I might even get to do a bit of camping and recapture those priceless memories of opening up to spirit in the Rocky Mountains.

And in the process, I’ll really pay attention to how I feel there. Is Colorado still the place for me? Or has it been just a Season in my life (I suppose places can be “Reasons, Seasons or Lifetimes," just as people can be)? Maybe I will find that, despite all the changes, Colorado is still the place where I belong. Or perhaps I will realize that I need to find a new “home” – if there is still time.

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