I seem to have turned a significant corner over the past few weeks, and while I still feel like I am living in the Twilight Zone, I’m gradually getting more of a handle on different parts of my life and transitioning toward more of a routine.

I’ve accomplished a lot in February: my work goal is to have this job down entirely by the end of Q1, and I am pacing healthily toward that outcome (I was told it takes 6-12 months to figure it out, I think I can do it in ~4). I have already had to give someone a final warning (pre-termination), recruit and subsequently hire someone, split up my territory a second time to allocate a 9th portfolio, and complete many other processes that typically arise gradually, so the ‘baptism by fire’ continues within this role. Company-wide, we are also returning to the office via our hybrid work model as of April 4, so I have been transitioning to that by spending 1-2 days a week in the office. All things considered, I do feel like I am providing tangible value at this time, and the constant challenging of my peer group on how they do things (and whether they do things the way they do solely because that’s the way they’ve always done it) has at least at this point been buffered by other contributions that create less tension. Each of us have a strategic priority, mine is rapid upskilling and technical training, I’ve done some good shit in that realm in the last month.

My team is cool, though emotional (they are young); I admire the extent to which they want swift, direct feedback and are gunning for improvement. Occasionally their extreme extraversion and emotionality frustrates me, but overall I like each one of them and they have unique strengths. It’s been a challenge to build any kind of real team culture or deep cohesion with corporate COVID restrictions and everyone working from home, but I think this will change as we continue to spend more time together in person.

I’ve built some efficiencies into my schedule that have made my life less stressful as well, and now that I have a handle on how the weeks will unfold (though I still start each week aiming to survive through end-of-day Friday), I dragged myself to Planet Fitness yesterday for the first time in two months, and went back this morning. I really thought I’d be disappointed by how woefully out of shape I am, as the most I’ve done over the past months is move/lift stuff/move stuff/clean stuff and walk the dog, and I expected the altitude to blow more wind out of my sails, but I had no issues whatsoever. This week’s experiment will be hitting the gym on two week days. If I can find 3-4 days a week to go to the gym moving forward, I’ll be happy enough. After peeling the Butterfinger frosting off a cake donut in the office on Friday, I pledged to go 5 days before the end of February. 2 down, 3 to go.

I went to see Dark Tranquillity on the 10th and met a lot of people, so that was also a step in the right direction. Omnium Gatherum will play on March 8 and that’s the next show; I’m still shocked and amazed there’s a great venue within walking distance (especially because it was completely unintentional and I didn’t realize this when I signed the lease on this house); I’m also seeing Jordan Peterson in ~3 weeks, as well as Leprous/The Ocean Collective and I have a work friend visiting toward the end of March, and next month will start with a trip out to Mt. Princeton Hot Springs for a few days (I actually took two days off of work to make this happen for myself). I want to hit the art museums around the city, but I will get to that in time.

It will take time to fully integrate all of these things into my life: friends, shows, going out, fitness, exploring the area, reading, whatever else. I still don’t feel like I fully live here, but I imagine that will start to stick over time. I’ve been enjoying this house and having all of my stuff, particularly in the kitchen, and have been cooking a lot. Yesterday I woke up pretty early, went to the gym, then came back and updated all of my budget spreadsheets for a real idea of what my life will look like in finances as a standard (no idea presently since there have been so many extraneous purchases related to this move), and was pleasantly surprised: I’ve been tracking expenses for many years to prevent myself from wasting money on subscriptions and I thought I’d end up with a few bucks every month after paying for Denver and Alaska, but I have more spending power than I expected, so that’s encouraging. I changed my cost of living dynamic significantly moving here: I have much higher general operating expenses than I did previously, and I will not be doing anything exotic for some time: I want to tuck another few tens of grands away to buy another house.

Over the past few weeks I’ve also hammered out my travels for 2022: I had a Turkish Airlines voucher I could never manage to convert to a cash refund, so I finally redeemed it for a ticket from JFK-Tblisi and a ticket back to JFK from Prague. I had initially planned to start that trip in Romania at Dark Bombastic Evening, but it ends up being too much time off, so I am starting in Tblisi, continuing to Brutal Assault (where many Denver people will be as well), closing out with a few days in Prague, and then heading home. I also bought my tickets to Alaska on Delta credits, so my trips thus far in 2022 were essentially paid for in 2020. Not bad. If I play my cards right, the accommodations portions will also be covered under work benefits.

I notice here as well that I am in a lot less general pain at this altitude, and that was my experience years ago when I came here. There is a negligible amount of research surrounding this, so I am actually not sure why I am not creaking and cracking when I walk around. My right hip, which was killing me in the fall and forced me to go to a chiropractor, has not bothered me since I got here. Finding the right mix of environmental conditions is a challenge; I will suffer significantly in the summer, but the dry, thin air seems to put a lot less pressure on my body. We’ll see if it holds up, but a combination of the sunlight and the altitude are helping me far more than they’re hurting me.

I still have to find a dentist, a primary care doctor and a vet; I did find a dermatologist who hopefully can take my life’s worth of records and just give me the meds I ask for without giving me too much trouble. I do plan to eventually return to Mayo to see if they can figure out why I have had numerous bouts of reactive hypoglycemia, though based on what I can see it seems unlikely they’ll be able to tell me why this happens (I am not pre-diabetic, all my bloodwork is perfect, etc.) After 2-3 episodes in the past 18 months, it’s at least clear to me that I can never, ever drink on an empty stomach and then chase booze with carbs, as I would like to never experience the extremely unpleasant symptoms of low blood sugar ever again, thank you. Hopefully all in all the change of scenery and altitude will make me feel less like I am living my life in a piece of shit malfunctioning body, having lost the genetic lottery within my family in terms of hereditary diseases by somehow having every single one between both my parents bestowed on me. My siblings take the luxury of not having to deal with this shit for granted, and neither of them care much for their own health. I have to bust my ass to avoid any of these comorbidities getting worse or a new autoimmune disease awakening. I also sound to myself like a hypochondriac, but after years of neglecting whatever issues arose, it’s ultimately easier to just figure them out swiftly and learn to manage them instead of allowing them to disrupt my life when they finally boil over and incapacitate me.

That’s about it for February. I haven’t been particularly adventurous and am focusing on slowly getting comfortable here and building a routine, and not sucking at work. Still haven’t really read much, sadly, though I have purchased 2 more books, and have been keeping up on The Economist. Hoping to knock out 2-3 books in March at the very least, but we shall see.