Burned out at 34

After years climbing the ranks of a Wall Street law firm, the author was burned out and disconnected from nature. She spent a year camping in the American West before moving to a valley south of Telluride, Colorado in early two thousand seventeen.

Awe at first sight

Telluride captivated her with rose-emerald hues, toothy ridgelines, and elk herds roaming the valley. It was routinely voted one of the best mountain towns in the US. Outside her front door were countless trails and thirteen thousand foot peaks to explore.

The community felt insular

By the end of her first year, she longed for New York City. The tight-knit community felt hard to break into. She craved interacting with people from different backgrounds, but the town with fewer than two hundred residents had little diversity in its population.

A relationship as a Band-Aid

She began dating her now-husband, who had lived there for almost twenty years. Once partnered with a local, she was more often welcomed by others. For the next five years, she tried to put down roots through volunteering and part-time work at a backcountry ski lodge.

Local government work backfired

She used her legal background in local government, researching resident issues. But the work became frustrating as she encountered resistance to change and gendered dismissals unlike anything in her Wall Street career. She ultimately resigned, feeling more isolated than before.

Trapped between two selves

By twenty twenty-three, she regularly escaped town for work travel, finding fulfillment in exploring cities and museums. She realized she had swung from one extreme to another. In New York, her love of nature felt stifled. In Telluride, her cultural curiosity felt stifled.

“In New York City, the part of me who loved the solace of birdsong and long days in the mountains felt stifled, and in the Telluride area, the more culturally curious part of me felt stifled.”

Seeking balance elsewhere

She and her husband sold their mountain house and are now splitting time between Northern Italy and Northern New Mexico, seeking a place where all aspects of herself could be nourished and finding fulfillment in other towns.