I am 31 years old and I am finally moving away from the place I have called home my entire life. I am leaving Salt Lake City for the first time. Maybe the last time, maybe the only time. But I am leaving.
It’s definitely time. Probably past time. For a variety of reasons large and small. But it probably starts with the fact that I want to know more about who I am outside of these valley walls. What I am and what is just a product of being here, being from this place.
Irony. That I am finally leaving this place right as it is starting to explode with transplants moving here. Salt Lake City has changed in many ways in my time here, but the easiest to spot is the sheer amount of growth the city and the state have experienced. Salt Lake is a paradox. Started by the Mormon Pioneers as they ran away from persecution and the law. Now it’s a place everyone wants to run toward, mormon or not. A weird and sleepy little place with quirky laws that suddenly is growing faster than it can actually keep up with. A place to access the outdoors away from the crowds that is suddenly very, very crowded.
I don’t know numbers off the top of my head, but I do know that whatever lists are out there about population and economic growth, housing markets, employment, and people moving to a place, Utah is on it. And Salt Lake City is the hub of that growth around which the entire state seems to spin. It’s busy now and growing busier. It’s louder downtown now. In some ways, many ways really, meaner too. No end in sight either, people keep moving here. More everyday.
Here is the thing though: I get it! This place is amazing. I can ski world class resorts in 30 minutes if I want to, and then afterward get a good cocktail and meal downtown. Some days in spring I can ski and mountain bike on the same day. I am typing this on my patio with a view of the gorgeous Wasatch Mountains. I’ve grown so used to it that I tend to forget the oddness of this place. How great it really is. Next to a lake so salty they couldn’t find any other name for it. There is true beauty here. Magic. The best access to nature you could ask for.
It was a great place to grow up, if for no other reason my home was right at the mouth of Big Cottonwood canyon and I could almost literally step out my door and into the outdoors. People are moving here for the same reasons that I love it here. It’s fun, it’s cheaper, it’s beautiful, it’s safer.
Salt Lake is a paradox. More people move here and they get less and less of what they came for. The first things to go are affordability and access to the outdoors. Both get choked off by the increasing demand and dwindling supply. I can’t fault anyone for moving here to ski, but damn, if too many people do it, then where do we all park? And Jesus Christ a day pass to ski $200+ now?! The median home price is now over half a million bucks. There is just only so much to go around, unfortunately. So here we are, more and more people moving here everyday. And everyday it gets a little harder to access the things they moved here for. And then there is me, ready to jump ship just as everyone else seems to have the opposite idea. Go figure.
But I gotta get out of here. I need to know what is beyond the valley. Need to know what I am beyond it, more accurately. There is too much baggage here, too much drama, too much toxicity, too many ghosts. It’s like all the oxygen in the valley gets sucked up and there is none left for me to breathe life into what I want. A band I love has a song called Peace in The Valley that goes:
And our actor ends his love song / And all these lovers sit and stare.
If I don't find peace in the valley / It's cause there wasn't any there
Man. That’s the one. I am 31 years old and just figuring out for the first time what I want. I don’t know if I am up to learning some new tricks, but… time to go leap without looking and hope whatever is on the other side of the valley is ok with me crashing the party.