Several days ago, I went for a walk because I was having a run of the mill existential crises and was spending far too much time indoors. Nothing serious, but I needed to acqaint myself with some fresh air and distance myself from flourescent lighting.

It was late evening, and the trees hung in that lurid state of semi paralysis, as if competing in vogue for the cover of the autumnal edition of "deciduous daily".(which to my dismay, is not actually a real magazine) 

The landscape was drawing nearer and nearer to its blissful purple, the hour when the branches and limbs are but dark wisps, a mirror of a confusing lineage of thought that had been brewing inside since an indiscernible hour earlier that morning.  

I'm wearing the brown Timberlands I bought with familiarity at the Buffalo Exchange in San Antonio for only a teenaged sum of George Washington's. They were purchased from an arsty twentysomething with a bountiful quantity of piercings, high waisted mom jeans, and a tattoo of Frieda Kahlo.

David Bowie emanted from the retro speakers as I fished wadded up bills from my back pocket. I had come to know this woman and her eccentric coworkers from Saturdays of rifling through their peculiar stock for oddities that made feel like I still had a sense of individuality when forced to conform to a uniform.

As I turned to leave one of them began animatedly talking to another about how liberated she feels after kicking her ex girlfriend out.

I realized that I would miss them; along with the breakfast tacos the dreadful humidity,the spurs basketball stomping ground and the people that comprised my routine.

This transaction was the last I made before I swapped penny loafers and plaid for the Michelin man puff of my first winter coat. 

The brisk greeting I received from the air during my mission to clear my head reminded me of the weather when I first moved to Denver, and an unexpected smile spread from the sheer shock of the contrast.Two different lives and the time between them does not feel as if it is in sync with my other exposures to time. Rather, it's like a strange conglomeration of long years and short days. I think of all that has transpired in the space in between; a zone devoid of routine, really. An 8 month period that despite its duration, sees me as both my most social self and  in my greatest state of solitude.

A time that led me to re think my definition of both these things.

The expression that I held during this thought process resulted in an awkward exchange with my neighbor as I swapped a goofy glance with the squirrel that was actively ridding his lawn of rogue nuts.

It has been eight months since I first walked with new friends in the odd rhythm that people do when they are unfamiliar with each other's pace, tentative at first, minding the notion that it is in good humor to walk in a straight line. It was late march, the air was still teeming with the anticipation that accompanies briskness. I had been living in the land of the oxygen deprived and suburus,   formally known as Denver,  for approximately three months. Until this moment, I had gone that long without a real friend in my new home, excluding Simon and Garfunkel and the cast of "The Office".

In the summer of 2013, my family came to the consensus that we would move to Denver from my motherland of San Antonio Texas, at the tail end of the Christmas season. My father was based out of the elevated city for work and after some consideration, it was deemed a proper home, and I was surprisingly the first person to be on board.

Now, before I continue this tale I find it fit to acknowledge the prejudices against the frontier that is the southern state. With this in mind, i now want you to consider what it would be like for a Texas raised teenager subjected to the confines of an girls catholic school to transfer willingly to a Denver public school that is as liberal as they come. Culture shock?To say the least

I have always had trouble with making positive first impressions and knowing how to behave in the early stages of social exchanges. Such afflictions, of course, ended up posing a problem for me when faced with befriending kids from a sea of people that was fairlyforeign to me. However, I am one for adventure and in my solitude was an odd combination of liberated, uncomfortable, attentive and curious. Despite those feelings, for three months I was also terribly sad, incredibly observant, quite pale, and had taken to neurotically journaling my  every thought,  musing & observation while voraciously  consuming alarming quantities of diet fig bars from costco.

This is why I now associate figs with lonliness and low comedy.

I was distancing myself from Texas, and found that at school I didn't have a reliable person to talk to other than Kimper, a Chinese exchange student who I supspected used me solely to assist him with his English language practice test and discerning the meaning of loaded terms such as "moose" and "crop top". I felt lost and vastly disconnected from everything, and so I crept deeper and deeper into my own head.

In general, it was strange for me to interact with boys, as my primary friends back home have been largely, of the female variety.

Girls that have been my best friends  since the seventh grade. Trying to socialize myself into this school was not unlike Tarzan being reintegrated into society. What with the cold snow , the laid back attitude of the classroom, the wearing of street clothes, not having to adorn myself in a  grade specific lanyard, and the loneliness- in many ways the motifs and themes of my life were not far estranged from a Russian novel.

It was a beautiful and neccesary period of existence.

By about mid March, I began to take note of a specific group of fellow sophomores that I deemed particularly interesting. I had classes with a few of them and noted their refreshing nerdiness, idiosyncrasies and striking realness. From time to time I would talk to them tentatively and eventually I must have fooled them into thinking I was relatively cool.

"Cool" is one of those words that is filled with meaning that is relative to the individual. In the social context, everyone has their own definition.
I know this to be an incredibly important truth.

  Around this time,we had a field trip to witness the Denver March powwow. I was thrilled! Although the grade book required it, this event marks the first time I would interact with my peers outside of the school. I tried to suppress my enthusiasm but my nervous tic of cracking   Cheesey jokes prevailed. Despite this, they seemed to like me. I think it also helped initially  that I bought them popcorn, and that I shocked them with the fact that I didn't really conform to any of their preconceived Texan stereotypes.

After perusing the collections of giant dream catchers and widdled wolves with these virtual strangers, for the first time that I can remember, I was actually being totally myself with other people.

I have this friend in Texas who braved middle school with me like the tornadic storm it is. I never really said it, but to me, for so long she was just as much a funnel cloud as the snow capped pimples that at one time traced my hairline like the continental divide.  While I still love her, I found that even through highschool, she would often reduce me down to the butt of a joke as we tried meeting new people and then would ditch me when something allegedly more exciting came her way. Sometimes she was great, but all too often my dignity was compromised and my accomplishments never seemed to matter. Freshman year we began to grow apart, and I recognized that my other best friend, who remains such to this day, treated me much better than the other one. This version of myself that developed from her craft stayed with me as I grew up, and even when I wasn't with her I unknowingly felt the effects.

In my memory, something about the conversations I had at the Pow-Wow, although not memorable, seemed to flow. It was like riding a bike for the first time without the assistance of training wheels or a cautious parent; socializing without the full force of the limitations from the preconceived notions and perceptions projected upon me by others. At the time I wasn't aware that I was going to become as close as I am now with this group of people. All of them have been completly considerate, hilarious and shockingly themselves and since the advent of this friendship at that powwow, and then a couple of weeks later at a non school affiliated social gathering where I was introduced to the wonders of the light rail and ginger beer, this group of people I have welcomed into my life has only expanded because being with them made me develop a better relationship with myself.

I didn't know that I didn't know that I had always supressed a part of my personality around most everyone with the exception of one or two close friends. I didn't know I didn't know that I was made to beleive things about myself based on what other people needed me to be for their own benefit, rather than concretly defining who I am based on myself alone. And retrospectively, I think it took me physically separating myself from the people and place that I grew up with in order for me to separate what was actually a part of me and what was projected onto me.

As the winter months approach and the need for warm ankles is more of a necessity, I find that I wear the Timberlands more and more often. The fact that they came to be at such a unique period in my life is oddly comforting. While I have experienced and learned more about myself since moving here than I ever thought I would, San Antonio is still the place that I grew up in, just as the friends that I had there will always be a significant part of who I am.

With the development and complications of all the relationships I hold in Denver and San Antonio , I will say that nothing is ever truly black and white, and social dynamics remain difficult to navigate.

This morning I went for a walk.

Snow was falling softly, and still finding it a novelty, I  excitedly ventured out into the freezing environment.
I eagerly bounded out the door, wearing my winter coat, and my brown Timberlands. Looking  more like the Michellan Man than ever.