I already miss city living

I am moving out a big city in 2 days. I am moving back to somewhere I've lived most of my life. But I have gotten used to being able to see and do things I have never been able to do my whole life. I have never lived in a place where there are building taller than 5 stories. I have never lived in a place where good bands played every week on good months. I have never lived in a place with a major light rail system. And even though I have no friends out here, and I rarely leave my house, and I'm not a huge fan of snow...I will miss it here.

I am sitting in a famous historic bookstore in lower downtown(LoDo) Denver. It's called the Tattered Cover, and it's 3 stories tall and it's old and huge, and pretty freaking cool. We don't have anything like this in Medford. The old library is now sitting there being unused for a new bigger library that is not being used. At least not a lot. The old library is something I love and will always love. My best friend and I used to walk a mile or more to get to the library from my house and we would take empty backpacks. We would spend hours upon hours just walking around looking at books. But we'd always leave with something a little less cultural. We'd walk out of the library wih our once empty backpacks full of "Mad" magazines. It was a fun period in my life.

ANYWAY, before I digress a little too much, I was just trying to say that there is nothing like this old bookstore in Medford, at least not anymore. This is something I will miss. And when I get to move to Portland I will get to live in a great city with a lot of history and modernism. I will get to live in a city famous for things I have nothing to do with: Beer, Veganism/Vegetarianism, Artists etc etc. I have no desire to drink beer or to go veg. I like meat, I don't like alcohol. But there is something about the city that just draws me to it. And it draws a lot of other people from all over Oregon and the world to it. It's intoxicating to most...

I hate that I have to make a "pit-stop" in Medford again before I am able to move to Portland. I love Medford, I love that my friends are in Medford, I love that I don't have to worry about crime that much and that I can get across town in around 10 minutes. But I also hate all of those things about it. My friends are becoming less and less like me by the day, and I am not sure how to handle it. They all do things I don't agree with to the point of me not really caring if I go home or not. I love all of them dearly and will always love what we have/had but I cannot deal with seeing them do things to themselves that they don't realize will hurt them. Most of them have not had to deal with what drugs and alcohol will do to people. I have. And I'm not trying to say that I'm better or more experienced than them...but it sometimes feels like they are oblivious. And if I'm in a city with not much to do, and my friends are hurting themselves, albeit not deliberately, it's not something I can handle to much anymore. But if I'm living in a city where there are other things to do, I can get away from them while this is happening.

Things I will miss specifically about Denver:
Wild Ginger's Panang Curry
the Light Rail
the Marquis Theatre
my Family (a very small part of it)
the Community of Dancer (for the most part, Josh and the ginger kid can drink bleach for all I care)

It's a small list, and if you refer to the curry, it may not be important. But it's the truth, it's my truth.

Denver, goodbye.
Portland, see you soon.
Medford, see you sooner, sadly.