It's a free country

I fucking love Colorado. When I look back on the past six months I really have no regrets. I honestly feel bad for those that are living the "American Dream" in California. Last I checked, the American Dream was about being happy and content, two concepts that are hard to find in the Golden State. About the only thing we miss is our families and their proximity. The list of things we don't miss is a bit longer. Namely, commutes on freeways that involved incessant, unrelenting congestion. There is nothing like leaving work at 5PM and getting home (15 miles down the road) at 6:15, all the while enjoying the asshole in front of you's cigarette through your vents. Or how about knowing that if you want to afford your gardener (after all, who in their right mind would want to mow their own lawn?), your two car payments (who the fuck would buy a used car?!), your retirement contribution, and maybe a vacation, both you and your significant other will HAVE to work. If you have children, this necessitates day care, which certainly is not cheap. But, you say, it means I can live in So Cal, where the beach is nearby and the people and the climate are beautiful. I have news for you..This is all true. IF..you think plastic surgery is beautiful, and if you even go to the beach. What So Cal is mostly about is image. As in, "I am fucking tough..I have a Range Rover with brush guards. OK, so I probably will not drive it to the Sahara or the outback. But some asshole at Bed, Bath, and Beyond might accidentally leave a shopping cart in the space I want to park in." Or "I need to buy a Hummer because it is the biggest vehicle on the market which means I can feed my kids more

McDonald's and still fit their fat asses in the car than if I had a suburban." I guess what I'm getting at is the overwhelming feeling I got that people were more intent on what they needed to get than what they currently had. Things in Colorado are a little different.

People are nice. You don't get the feeling that when you are filling up at the gas station, the guy next to you is sizing you up. People that work in convenience stores and in toll booths seem genuinely happy to see you. The air is clean. The water out of the tap tastes like Coors Light. The population is small enough that changes can and do occur in the state's political balance of power. Colorado is a swing state, which means the candidates from the two dominant national political parties at least act as if they give a shit about the place. But mostly what matters, in my estimation, is that when I sit out on my back deck at sunset, the light is reminiscent of a sepia photo and the temperature is what I hope the thermostat in heaven is set to (assuming such a place exists and I am invited). I have an unobstructed view of Table Mountain to the south and the Front Range to the west and I have air that doesn't taste like half a million cars going 5 miles an hour for 7 hours a day. I have a drive to work that is 15 minutes each way. It is 15 minutes long because it is a distance of 13 miles and there are a handful of stoplights along the way. And because sometimes I drive a little under the speed limit when I'm passing the golf course that is 5 minutes from my house. The golf course that happens to be owned by the city, has 27 holes, costs under $50 for primetime, and has conditions and scenery that would easily cost $100 in So Cal. Oh and did I mention that my drive to work involves no highways, freeways, toll ways, or thruways? Just a handful of country roads.

My wife and I assessed our situation last summer. Housing prices out of hand. A painful commute to a job with no real potential for me. Part-time work for her, to supplement my income, but allow her to spend most of her time with our young son. And not a whole hell of a lot of optimism that life would ever get easier for us. So I could go back to consulting. That would solve the money issue. But my wife would effectively be a single mom four days a week and I would miss out on my son's rapid development. Or we could move, cashing out the equity we'd amassed, freeing my wife from the need to work, and giving me a new start at a job I didn't hate. But this would involve leaving family and the comfort of the vicinity we'd both grown up in. We meticulously fleshed out all the factors and determined that the opportunity was one that might not present itself again, at least not anytime soon. We decided on a course of action, one that introduced prerequisites that would severely limit the downside. And we followed that plan, slowly and deliberately, but most importantly, successfully.

And you know what? We do miss our family, but that was a given. The fact that we only drive on the freeway now to pick up and drop off visitors at the airport is an allegory for what our lives now are not about. Stress, the rat race, and neighborly materialistic competitive bullshit are some of the things now absent from our lives. Instead, we are surrounded by nice people, who do all manner of things for a living, and who don't give a shit where we are from, what cars we drive, or how we vote, but instead like our son's adventurous nature, enjoy the calming sounds of our water feature in the backyard, and even like our colored concrete that was supposed to be "kahlua" but turned out purple.

I strongly suggest to everyone that you take an objective (or whatever is as realistically close as you can get to objective) look at where you live. Are you there because you truly want to be? Or are you there for other reasons? Have you been shamed into staying somewhere or are you where you are because it is undoubtedly always easier to maintain the status quo rather than institute change? If you don't love where you are, consider moving. Within the confines of the United States alone there are a hell of a lot of places to live. The positive side of the commercial homogenization that has dropped a Starbucks on every corner, and a Home Depot and Borders in every town is that familiarity of some sort is present wherever you go. However, the unique aspects of each corner of our great country provide you with the opportunity to seek out a characteristic that is notably lacking in your present place of residence. Do you love the mountains? Do you love the ocean? Do you love southern charm? Do you love East Coast history? Well, you know what? Pay these places a visit. Between Southwest, JetBlue, and Frontier, you can probably find a reasonable flight from wherever you are presently to wherever you'd like to check out. Embrace Independence Day by acknowledging your freedom to improve your situation.