Finding Leadville Chapter 5: Love and Pizza

The author and her Chris in the first few months of dating

Chris entered the scene not too long after that evening. Of course, he didn't know when he met me that he'd one day wake up to a 3 AM alarm clock in Leadville, Colorado, to support me as I ran 100 miles. And on the way there he'd become my safe place to land, no matter where my explorations of the heart took me.

Like many great things, our love took its time. Chris was once just a guy in a flannel button down at a pizza shop, serving slices of hot pizza and pints of cold beer. 

The night I met him, it was early Fall and I was driving around Minneapolis, looking for a place to eat. The problematic man whom you met last chapter had sent me a text an hour earlier, trying to connect. “Fuck that,” I thought. I deleted his number and for good measure, blocked him.

A thick book for grad school jostled on the passenger seat: Motivational Interviewing. Entering the final year of my master's program, I was on the cusp of becoming a board-certified health and wellness coach. After working for Nike and Skechers in the footwear industry throughout my twenties, I had pivoted. This degree gave me a route into wellness with both credibility and impact -- there was good work to be done. I had to catch up on my reading and I wanted to do it with cheese and beer.

I drove through Uptown Minneapolis, surveying my options. Across the street from my inching car was a hometown spot called Galactic Pizza. I hadn’t been yet and heard good things. I decided to drive forward until I could make a U-turn and park safely. As I clocked my path to turn, a cyclist shot out of my blind spot. Spooked, I swept my blinker off and barreled straight through the next intersection instead. 

Heart pounding, I noticed a sign up ahead, neon-lit: Pizza Luce. Well, I thought, that’ll work. Like a moth to light, I pulled into the lot, collected my things, and made my way inside for a table. 

Ellie sat me, honoring my desire to eat outside on the patio. She was short, tattooed, and flawlessly beautiful with black hair, deep-lined eyes, and goth clothing. Seating me, she plunked a glass of water on the table with a menu and a wink, “Chris is your server tonight. He’ll be right with you.”

I sank into the tall back chair and inhaled the heavy scent of hops hanging on the pergola above me.

“Coca cola, tap beer, lemonade?” I looked up to see Chris and his not-quite-hazel eyes looking at me. I smiled. He had an easy, friendly way about him, a Minnesotan beard hugging his chin. He had the vibe of a person who wanted to be here– not just on the patio serving slices, but on Earth experiencing life. I liked that. An immediate buzz surged through me, not unlike the little-kid feeling from running through a sprinkler on the first real day of hot summer. He was cute.

I watched as he left to retrieve my drink. Dark curly hair. A few inches taller than me. Black Vans on his feet and a chain wallet. A little punk rock. I thumbed through my book absentmindedly as I indulged in possible flirtation. With the all-to-recent nudge from friends to “just-be-single,” it felt a little soon.

But, I could feel his eyes on me as he made his way back onto the patio, cold suds in hand, and another table’s order in the other. I pretended to read. He tended to another table before sweeping over to mine, playfully coaxing me from grad school obligations. He lingered. I loved it.  

That’s how the evening went. Smooth, crisp, easy. Him serving me and then loitering, creating conversation. I laughed. He asked questions. I caught him looking at me from inside of the shop. I went so far as to text a friend: My server is cute. Should I ask him out? Her reply came swiftly: Duh, yes!

Wrapping up the evening, he dropped off my check. Dutifully I added the tip, signed it….and on the extra receipt jotted my phone number with an invitation to call me. Why not, I thought.

Of course, he texted me. Within the hour. We made a plan to meet.

We landed on a local music venue down the road called Icehouse. Live music, low lighting, and a packed house made it challenging to talk, but we did our best. As the evening wore on, so did my mentality and my heart. We had a solid hour of vibrant discussions about life, each other, our families, my schooling, his upbringing in Wisconsin. But once the music started, we fell into silence together, holding our drinks, faces forward toward the stage. 

I got lost in my head, the swell of not being ready to date so soon. Wrapped up in thoughts– pulsing, buzzing, unrelenting in my skull – I excused myself to the bathroom. Skirting around small tables with intimate moments, the band’s bass thumping, I maneuvered my way to the women’s room, dampness blooming in my armpits. Looking in the mirror, I attempted to compose myself. Breathe. I ran my wrists beneath the cold tap water to slow my heart rate. 

I don’t even know this guy. I was at odds with how to proceed. My mind was going into a full shutdown. Up until that point, I had largely put men and their feelings first. I'd easily discarded my intuition and needs to make sure my date was happy. But what was going on tonight? What did I want to do? How did I want to date? Overwhelmed, I decided: I was going to leave.

I pushed open the bathroom door, excused myself through the back of the crowd. Just out of Chris’s sightline, I slipped out the front and into the cool September night to walk myself home. 

I ghosted him.

“I’m not ready for this,” I puffed the words up to the stars.

Take your time, they assured me.

I walked the few miles home, placing one steady foot in front of the other.

Stillness and uncertainty can feel painful. Which is curious to me, especially how I grew up. On a piece of farmland in Western Massachusetts, my eleven siblings and I were bored all the time. It prompted us to create, play pretend, to curate our own entertainment. We didn’t have cable or the internet, making our way through the 90's and the early 2000's with skinned knees from tree climbing, trips to the local library, and blanket forts with entire storylines attached to our play.

One of my brothers, Joe, was an exceptional story creator. He could take a simple moment of quiet and transform it into a new and exciting place. I adored him for that. We could be World War II pilots one afternoon and the next we were characters from Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tale, on a long and dusty pilgrimage.  He went on to become a priest, lacing his homilies with story, detail, and delight to capture the love of his congregation. 

Joe caught the storytelling bug from my father. On special occasions, my father would put us all to bed instead of my mother, standing in the landing that separated the boys' room from the girls'. The girls' room, two bunk beds and a baby bed, held five of us at one time. The boys' room had a single bunk bed. There was no door on the girls' room; instead, a sheet tacked to the doorframe for privacy. My father stood there, between the two rooms, and laced story after story for us.

More than the storytelling and imaginative games, my childhood was filled with long summers in my favorite tree, scribbling poems into notebooks and making long lists of all the things I wanted to do: catch frogs, ride my bike to the library, roll down the hill with my sister, make a castle in the sandpile beneath the tree house, and make dandelion jewelry for my mom.  The slow daily life of the farm was a prompt to thumb through my list, pick what sounded good and right to me, and just do it. 

Adult stillness seemed to be more complicated. The throb of expectation has a way of muddling things, making us believe that because we are bored or uncomfortable the moment is wrong, we are wrong. We may have an intense press to abort, to find something useful or better, to get out now!

After walking out of our first date, I was forced to make some sense of it. Chris was nice. I was genuinely attracted to him. I got uncomfortable in our quiet stillness. I got scared. I didn't trust anything, including my gut or our synergy. And, I bolted. I had to get away, get back to myself, step into the cool autumn night and walk my way through the feelings that had ignited. 

Lucky for me, Chris was gently persistent. He waited for me to be ready to let him in.

And, in time, I did let him in. I invited him to a poetry reading.  He met my friends. We went out for food, hiked out onto the red sandstone, and shared black coffee on cracked sidewalk patios. He held my hand as we walked and showed up at finish lines of races. He listened as I spoke and didn’t rush me to complete my thoughts. I could be loud or soft, open or closed, and he was game for it. Whatever version of myself that needed to emerge, he did his best to make room for it. Make room for me.

In time, I slowly felt safe, seen. 

In time, I felt special, important. The little girl in me began to peek out from her hiding place. She opened to the possibility that love can be packaged in a new, healthy way.

And slowly, in time, her and I told him (and meant it): “I love you.”

Sometimes it can take another person to patiently wait for you to stretch out, emerge from your fetal position in hibernation, and be your true, authentic self -- so they can show you that they have the capacity to be with all parts of you.

How We Said I Love You

I want to feel big, 

I told you 

as I traced my fingers 

along your skin.

My thumb caught your chin 

as my eyes

slipped down 

to your lips. 

I stroked your left cheek

with a knuckle 

and whispered:  

you make me feel big

instead of 

so 

small. 

You brought your mouth 

to mine,

kissed me with 

a punctuation

I hadn’t yet 

encountered

and told me, 

take up all 

the space

you need. 

At a music awards show, mackin it, less than a year into the relationship