Written on 3/11/2019. Published on 5/2/2020. Just stumbled upon this post on an overnight shift at my ER in Bishop. Little did I know it, but I was about a week and a half pregnant at the time of this writing and my world was about to get rocked…
“Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die
It takes a lot to change a man
Hell, it takes a lot to try
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die”
I am in Bozeman, Montana, currently. Just visiting my sister and friends and reveling under the big open sky. I have signed a contract to start work in Bishop, California, at the foot of the Eastern Sierras. This is a huge move for me for many reasons. First, I have no experience with that plot of Earth. My adult existence has taken place solely in the cradle of the Rocky Mountains. Clark, Big Sky, Bozeman, Missoula, Salt Lake (*albeit with a year hiatus in Seattle– not much to write home about if you ask me! ). This place has shaped me, akin to the glaciers that shaped the terrain. Nearly every person and place that I have known and loved over the past fifteen years can be found in an eight-hour oval spanning the Rockies.
When I first moved to Clark I remember feeling claustrophobic as I drove toward the town; a midwestie worried that the mountains would obscure my view of the world and make me feel locked in. How wrong a person can be. I fell in and out of love for the first time in North Routt County, Colorado. I made my way to Montana and figured out who I am. I got married and subsequently divorced. During this time I found out who I wasn’t. I left Montana with a broken heart. I left my partner and a land I loved, neither decision I was entirely comfortable with at the time. I slowly came to let go of my marriage, but I never really let go of Montana. And so, during my time in Salt Lake City, my compass continued to point North. I returned to Montana every chance I had, every vacation, nearly every time I had two consecutive days off of work. My relationship with Bozeman became one that can only be described as capricious. It was either the best of times or the worst of times. The best encompassing close friendships and familiar terrain. The worst characterized by the pain of trying to let go of that which was not meant for me. It’s funny how even when you know something is all wrong it can still be a struggle to buy in to that reality. I found that my return trips to Salt Lake were characterized by a real warm heart or a hell of a lot of angst. It was hard to predict which it would be.
I interviewed for an Emergency Medicine position in Bozeman and I found myself at a crossroads, not knowing if I still wanted to build my life there or not. I heard a story on NPR a while back about trying to come up with words for common feelings. A word that resonated with me was “zealschmirtz” which was assigned the meaning “fear of getting what you want.” This is exactly how I felt in the wake of that interview. At the end of the day they weren’t hiring after all, which I think actually felt like more of a relief than let down. Jim and I were offered jobs in Bishop, and on a lark accepted them. I remember sitting outside of the Murray Bar in Livingston and calling our bossman in SLC to let him know we would be easing down the road.
So here I am, in Bozeman, shortly after having decided to move elsewhere. I’m here by myself, that is to say without Jimmy, and I found myself laying in a restorative yoga class with the aforementioned song blaring in the background. “Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die.” It’s what I needed to hear and exactly what I was feeling. Maybe I was holding on to Bozeman just a little too tight. I’m not sure that Bishop will be the end-all be-all for me. Time will tell. It is a good feeling to look to the horizon ahead rather than focus on the rear-view.