Leaving home is hard. Especially when you really loved it there.
As I approach the 1-year mark of my move from Maine to Utah, it’s time we reflect.
(My lovely coworker Deanna decorated and baked for multiple celebrations during my time at Sugarloaf, including my 27th birthday cake and my goodbye cupcake rainbow.)
I left a small, loyal community that knew me incredibly well, whom I loved deeply.
^My Sugarloaf family (aka my coworkers, aka 70%* of the non-retired community *no that is not a factual statistic but probably not that far from it)
For brief context, I spent a lot of my childhood at Sugarloaf, growing up in the weekend race program, and eventually going to highschool at the ski academy there for all four years and getting to ski that mountain nearly every day while seemingly always studying for a bio exam on the chairlift. After that, despite choosing a college in Upstate New York, I’d come back to Sugarloaf for the month of holiday break and work for the Sugarloaf Lift Department all 4 years, embracing the exhaustion of working 17 days straight, waking up far before the lifts opened and being absolutely exhausted by the time last chair was called. I felt most ‘me’ being immersed in the operations of this beautiful resort, and remember thinking to myself “This is where I belong”.
When I graduated college, I moved to the one city in Maine, 2.5 hours from Sugarloaf, and figured that’d be close enough to my favorite place. An engineer by week, a ski race coach for 12-year-olds on the weekends, surely this would be enough. 1 year later, I decided it was time to go all in on Sugarloaf life and leave that silly city version of myself in Portland, Maine.
Once I relocated to Carrabassett, I spent 3 years in the marketing department, going from ‘Daily Snow Reporter’ to ‘Sugarloaf Personality’ during my time there. Equally in front of and behind the camera, I was on the mountain for all the special moments and able to both create and witness joy from the locals, weekenders, and tourists alike. And gosh, it was the best thing ever.
Moral of the story: I was a major voice for a ski resort that was authentically my home. Having everyone know me on the mountain and value my presence in my home mountain town was a dream come true, and I am so grateful to have found such a strong community so early in my professional life.
After a few years building my career in the marketing department at Sugarloaf, and despite my love for the place and the people, I knew I had to leave. Being comfortable is a good thing, until it makes you stationary. I was too comfortable to evolve the way my high-expectations self needed to for the long term.
Plus, I was quite lonely. A resort town is filled with people my age during the busy winter weekends, but I could count on one finger those who called Carrabassett Valley home. Anyone in my age range was likely someone I worked with, often very closely, and finding separation between work and life was simply not feasible. Given that I loved my work and the people I worked with, this was generally okay, but sometimes it’s okay to admit that you need a little more to fill your cup in the long term.
Don’t get me wrong, the retirement community in Carrabassett Valley was unmatched and held great value for me, but a part of me wanted to experience things for the first time with others who were doing the same (and maybe get the chance to pick who I spent my time with, every now and again).
My partner and I were ready to experience a new place, something that was equally new for both of us. Something that would help us build a life that didn’t feel stuck. Coming up on a year in Salt Lake City, Utah, I can say this decision was the best we could have made, but that doesn’t mean it was easy at all.
This past year, I’ve tried to suppress the constant concern about how those at home would view my experience out west, whether they’d think my leaving was ‘worth it’. My rational mind knows it’s not about them, but clearly, others’ perception holds more value than I’d like to admit. Going from a big fish in a small pond to a small fish in a big pond is scary, but necessary if the fish you once were isn’t exactly how you want to be forever. Going from ‘the face of’ a ski resort to being a nobody is a weird sensation. Humbling, for sure. What was most challenging, however, was going from ‘built in community that feels like family’ to ‘I am one of many, and turns out being a young blonde female in Utah is not the unique, differentiating factor that it is in the deep Maine mountains.
I was lost about my purpose, what I wanted my career to be, and what community I was meant to be part of. The thing about having options is that you get to choose the direction you head, but that choice is made quite challenging when, so far in life, you’ve kind of just gone with the flow and stayed close to home. Putting oneself out there is hard when you don’t know what you’re actually trying to ‘put out’. Things were different now, and all of a sudden I didn’t have a community that just automatically embraced me just because I exist (Simply breathing in Carrabassett Valley made you special cuz even the oxygen got lonely). The slim-picking mindset stays in Maine, where the number of acres far outweighs the number of people living in it.
I’m coming to find that there’s a whole world out there, and I’m still figuring out where I want to be in that world. That’s a great opportunity in itself, and while it always feels nice to show everyone that you figured it out, the ‘figuring it out’ process can be something you take pride in, too.
Leaving a place that’s so special to you is a really weird concept, and I still get sad about what once was, and what I passed up when I decided to make the big change and leave. I know I’ll be back one day, and it’s okay that it still hurts to think about the community I left behind. Hurts quite a bit sometimes.
I hope I can come to make that community proud when they see what I create out west, even though it's still very much in the making.
To my Sugarloaf community, I love you, I miss you, and I really hope I can make you proud.
Ski ya later,
Erica J.
