Brittany's Blog

What is home?

I have been recently thinking about this topic. What first brought it to my mind was when I was explaining to someone “I’ll be going home to Ohio next week to visit family, so I won’t be around.” Then I thought aloud to the person, “Well, really, Colorado is my home- I’ve lived here 14 years now. But…” Then she responded, “I understand. Someone once said to me ‘Home is where Mom is’.” I laughed at her comment. But, it got me thinking. What is home? And what makes us leave one home for another?

I left Ohio over 14 years ago to go to college in Colorado. That’s the easy explanation. But, the truth is, I was growing restless in Ohio. Every sense of my being told me I didn’t belong there- that I had to leave. My heart was in the mountains, so I focused on getting there. I got good grades in high school- not because I wanted to to well in school, per say- but, because I wanted to have the opportunity to do what I wanted to do. I wanted to leave Ohio. I wanted to be in the mountains. And I knew doing well in high school would help me achieve that goal. I never even applied to a college in Ohio. The colleges in Oregon were my back-ups. But, I was accepted into the University of Colorado and was elated.

When you leave something behind, you always miss some aspects. For me, I missed the greenness of Ohio. I missed living down the road from a giant lake which resembled an ocean. I sometimes missed my family, and I sometimes missed my friends. But, I learned to adapts. Everything about my new home in Colorado made me excited. I felt like my life was full again.

It’s funny how you outgrow things in life. As a child, you outgrow toys, clothes, and books. You may even “outgrow” a sport. Families outgrow houses. I outgrew Ohio.

But, I also outgrew my home on the Front Range – the suburbs of Denver. I spent nearly 14 years of my life making my home in this part of Colorado. I loved it at first. Just like I loved Ohio. But, things change. For me, it was the overwhelming crowds. When I first came to Denver, the only “city” between Denver and Boulder was Westminster. Over the years, I watched thousands of houses and buildings go up along the highway. I watched Golden sprawl from the valley into the hillsides. I felt the traffic getting worse and worse every year. What used to take an hour and a half to get to the ski area suddenly became three hours. I found myself spending more and more time in the car traveling to do the things that I loved to do. And then one day I realized -this just sucked. Why should I spend hours a day in a car? Why should I drive 40,000 miles a year to do the things that I like to do? The simple fact was this: I wanted a mountain life, but all my time in Colorado I’d never actually lived in the mountains. I’d always just lived near them.

So, for the last few months I’ve found myself living here in Crested Butte, happier than ever. My outdoor playground is right outside my back door. I went from filling up my car with gas 2-3 times a week to once every 2-3 weeks. There is no such thing as traffic here- unless one local stops to talk to another local in the middle of Elk Ave. When I moved here, I thought I would miss the conveniences of the city. We have to travel 30 miles to get most of our groceries. There is no Target or Kohl’s or Office Depot or Lowe’s for hours. But, I really don’t miss it. Life is simpler here. My doctor’s office is in a log cabin. The second time I visited the doctor’s office, they knew exactly who I was. That’s a far cry from the Kaiser mayhem which I was a part of for the past two years- usually seeing a different doctor on every visit- and most of them never even bothering to look at my records. In Crested Butte, I feel like I am part of a community. We passed or failed bonds here by less than 10 votes. In Denver, I felt like I was a lone Salmon trying to constantly swim upstream. What I did there didn’t make a difference to anyone, except for me.

Yesterday, I was on the plane from Ohio to Colorado (on my way back from visiting my family) and I thought to myself, “I’m going home!” I smiled. Getting home was a chore. I took 2 different planes, then drove for 3 hours in blizzard conditions to arrive home at 2 am.

It’s always good to visit “home”- the places that made you, where your family is. But, as the age old saying goes, “Home is where the heart is” and my heart lies in the mountains. It’s good to be back home here in Crested Butte.