12 Lessons Learned in 12 Months of Calling Denver Home

12 months ago today, I met my new landlord for the first time and received the keys to my new apartment. All my belongings were still somewhere in the Midwest and a week away from arriving.

The two prior months had been a blur of survival. Piper and I had been forced to abruptly leave my Chicago apartment after discovering we were inhaling chemicals that were affecting both of our hearts. We spent a month at my mom’s and then another month of moving in and out of Airbnb’s, living out of suitcases again, and eagerly awaiting stability.

Arriving to our new home was not your typical move-in. I was running on fumes, still in a flight state, and bracing for all the things that invariably would go wrong. And then my belongings arrived. I frenetically unpacked the last box, exhaled and collapsed. In every way. What followed was four months in the freeze state: the familiar heaviness of hopelessness and exhaustion settling into my bones.

Slowly though, I recalibrated. And then I really came into my own.

One of the most empowering things about the healing journey — though it is nearly impossible to see this when in the throes of it — is how each time you break, and rebuild, new layers of growth can expand you in unimaginable ways.

These are 12 things this past year taught me.

1) Doing things scared is a great teacher

When I first moved to Colorado, I had only hiked a handful of short trails alone out West, and some in the Midwest where natural predators aren’t really part of the equation. Hiking alone in the mountains taught me what it actually feels like to face something that intimidates you, take one small step anyway, and slowly, steadily build the kind of confidence that can’t be faked or rushed.

Starting a business has been the same kind of teacher. You don’t get to see the whole path before you commit to walking it. You just take the next step in front of you, and then the next one. And in doing so, over and over, you show your nervous system that you can be trusted. That you will not abandon yourself. It is incremental. It is humbling. And it works.

2) People don’t have to be bad people to still not be your people

I spent a long time being someone who would let people mistreat me before I finally recognized it was time to step away. My threshold for what I would tolerate was far too high, and I’d trained myself to look for red flags rather than the quieter signal of misalignment.

Colorado has been a profound education in that subtler boundary. Not everyone who drains you is a bad person. Some people are simply not your people. Different values create an incompatibility that has an energetic cost. That cost compounds. Learning to honor that feeling in real time, rather than waiting until I was energetically depleted, has been one of the most important shifts I’ve made since arriving here and trying, for the first time in years, to build community again.

3) One fully empathic witness was my missing link in healing

For most of my life, I treated healing as a private, internal effort. Something I had to figure out completely on my own before I could let others in. This year taught me that connection is vital in the healing journey.

Having even one person who fully sees you, accepts you without condition, and shows up with genuine reciprocity is a game-changer. I found that this year in a friendship unlike any I’ve had before. We have never actually met in person, and yet this relationship — built on honesty, non-judgment, and shared values — has healed parts of me I didn’t even know were still waiting to be seen. Co-regulation is real. Being truly witnessed has expanded me.

4) Sun and being outside year-round is medicine (+ I miss the rain)

I didn’t fully understand how much the weather in Chicago was affecting me. Seemingly endless, grey winters. Months on end with constant sogginess in the Earth and moisture in the air; chilling everything in a way that made the outside world feel sealed off. I normalized it because it was what I knew.

Colorado’s 300 days of sun have been genuinely rejuvenating. A year-round climate and sun beckoning me outside no matter the month of the year, is medicine for my nervous system. That said, I do miss the rain. The permission for a cozy day under blankets, a candle burning slowly nearby. The dewy smell. There’s something about a rainy day that feels like the world agreeing to slow down with you, and I find gratitude on the rare days Colorado delivers desperately needed rain.

5) Piper is a mirror to my own journey

Piper turns 8 in October. She now has a cardiologist, and we are navigating our first chronic health condition together. Since arriving in her fifth official home, in a fourth state, she has aged in noticeable ways. Her energy levels are significantly lower. She is more hypervigilant. Some of the sweet, unbothered ease of her younger years has tapered into something less playful with other pups.

I have watched our relationship evolve across seven years and more transitions than either of us asked for. What strikes me most is how precisely she has reflected back to me exactly what I needed during each season we’ve shared together. Unconditional love when I had none for myself, a little lick on my face when I was depleted, warmth when I was cold, a non-judgmental presence when I felt most undeserving of one. As I have genuinely arrived at a steadier, more grounded place within myself, her health is shifting. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Animals hold so much of what we carry. She has held a great deal of mine.

6) Driving in Denver is its own survival skill

I am a confident driver. Not cocky or aggressive, but an appropriate balance of assertive and attentive. I learned to drive in Chicago, lived on the road for thousands of miles, and have had more than my fair share of off-roading or outdoor adventure in the middle of nowhere. I was not prepared for Denver.

There is something about the way people drive here that requires a kind of 360-degree hyper-awareness I have never needed anywhere else. Cars shifting lanes without warning and almost never with enough space between cars driving at 60 mph, merging from angles that don’t make geometric sense, treating stop signs as suggestions. I had no idea before moving here that driving culture is so regionally specific. Denver driving remains one thing I have not made peace with.

7) Midwestern genuineness is irreplaceable

There is a specific quality to Midwestern friendliness that I took completely for granted until I no longer had it as my daily backdrop. It is not performative warmth. It is a kind of low-stakes, genuine, no-agenda kindness that makes strangers feel like neighbors — the dog park crew who start as familiar faces and slowly become real friends, the person who holds the door and then actually asks how you’re doing, the small conversations that accumulate into something that feels like community.

People here are polite, but less genuinely engaged. The moments of genuineness are more fleeting. I miss it sometimes. I carry my Midwestern warmth with me here, and when I meet another Midwesterner, we both know within about thirty seconds. Something in the earnest eye contact, easy laugh, and the unabashed how are you that wants an earnest answer.

8) Sharing untold truths creates a cathartic release

There are things I had been carrying for years; stories I had never said out loud that have changed me. Truths I have been scared nobody would understand. This year, I started slowly sharing some of my truths. I shared experiences that changed me and seasons that have shaped me. Stories of my life I never expected anyone to have the capacity to hold.

What I did not expect was how physically cathartic the release was. How much lighter I felt. Not because things changed, but because they no longer only lived inside me. Secrets, even the ones you’re keeping from yourself, carry weight. Putting language to them, sharing your story, with even one safe witness, loosens the experience’s grip on you.

9) I have needs and this may be the first time in 40 years I acknowledged that

This sounds straightforward, but it hasn’t been for me. For a long time, I operated as if having needs was an inconvenience I should apologize for. I am still learning to put my needs first, even ahead of Piper’s, and that is its own ongoing journey.

I need authentic connection. I need to feel safe. My needs matter. Claiming that, out loud and without qualification, was one of the quietest and most radical things I did this year.

10) Intentional movement is medicine

I have always known that movement makes me feel better. What I learned this year is the difference between movement as something I do and movement as something I protect.

Hiking, in particular, became a practice this year in a way it hadn’t been before. There is something about moving your body out on the trail that translates into something transformative off the trail. When I move my body with intention and consistency, everything else becomes more manageable.

11) You don’t need the full vision… just the next step

I spent a lot of this year not knowing what I was building or where I was going. What this year taught me is that you don’t see the summit from the trailhead. You allow it to reveal itself, by taking one step after another. The full vision reveals itself organically in motion, not at the very beginning.

Trusting that process, without needing to control the outcome, has been a lesson learned in real time this year, and honestly, understanding this is one of the more significant shifts of my life.

12) Parts work changed how I understand myself

If you’re not familiar with Internal Family Systems, commonly called parts work or IFS, the short version is this: it’s a therapeutic framework built on the idea that we are not one single self, but a system of different parts, each with their own histories, fears, and protective roles. The goal is not to eliminate the difficult parts, but to understand them, to build a relationship with them, and to lead from a place of Self rather than from your most wounded or reactive places.

Parts work has given me a deeper understanding for why I respond to triggers the way I do, helps me hold compassion for younger Laura and allows for some of my oldest parts to be seen for the first time. It is ongoing, non-linear, and some of the most worthwhile internal work I have ever done.

Bonus Lesson 13: Athleisure really is a way of life here and while I love living in yoga pants and hoodies, I sometimes miss the self-expression that comes through jewelry or eclectic clothing.

Colorado understood the assignment. Mostly. No notes on the yoga pants. I’m still negotiating the jewelry.