Mind Over Mountains

My wife Jeanie and I recently made the huge transition from Colorado to New Hampshire, where she will be attending Dartmouth medical college for the next four years. After fifteen years of calling the mountains my home, I was relocating to New England. In the weeks leading up to the move my mind was going haywire with questions, assumptions, and fears of the transition.

Transition represents the unknown, which is stressful to many of us. I immediately created negative presumptions about this new place. What the community wouldn't have, its limited career options, the limited social opportunities. You name it, I made an excuse for why I would yearn for my safe haven of Colorado.

We had a going away BBQ with close friends, colleagues, and my brother who is the main reason I relocated to the mountains in the first place. Saying goodbye to them made me emotional and afraid. The moving process and traveling in a huge rental truck across country didn't help. The change was REAL! Oh, we also had no place to live once we got there.

Upon arrival to the small ivy league college town, I had some significant occurrences that began to shed light at the end of the tunnel. We found an amazing new apartment right in town on the first day! My wife spoke with a local property manager the week before about a possible apartment, which for some reason she had no pictures of. It was skeptical to say the least. I thought we'd be camping the first few nights for sure. Low and behold, the place met all of our hopes and expectations, and we moved in that day.

The next morning we searched out the local coffee shop in town. As I waited in line I heard someone say my name. As I looked over my shoulder, there stood a good friend from Colorado. As it turned out, his brother is an attorney in town, who he visited annually. "Small world", I thought. My wife and I were invited to a BBQ at their house that evening, where I met several local contacts, one of which has a wife who is going to be a med student in Jeanie's class. Okay, really small world. He also may be looking for someone to fill a role in his local business. I meet with him next week! These are just a few of many fortunate occurrences in the days that followed.

My perspective of this unbearable change began to shift. My fear of the unknown began to fade, and was replaced by excited optimism. Funny how change unfolds, isn't it....