‘Magical’ Green Smoothie

I moved into my apartment in Bozeman on a Sunday in late September. We’d spent all day boxing things up in Big Sky and arranging the pieces of my Montana life thus far haphazardly into a U-haul. In the dark we unload those pieces into my new Bozeman life. Exhausted I stood in my new very dark kitchen and surveyed my ‘home.’ Tears threatened. What had I done?

In an attempt to comfort my growing anxiety the first thing I unpacked was my Vitamix and my peanut butter. I found all the ingredients necessary to make my favorite smoothie at that time and arranged them neatly on the counter so that their familiarity would greet me the next morning when I awoke to my uncertainties. At least, I wouldn’t start my day with a pseudo crisis of faith over what to eat for breakfast. As I gathered my cinnamon and soaked almonds for nut milk, my fears lessened. Maybe it was going to be ok. If I could make this smoothie in this new place, maybe this new place dungeon and all wasn’t so bad. Maybe I had not made a mistake in believing Bozeman was my next step.

As an over thinker it’s amazing the number of times I have quickly made a decision without considering how that decision actually manifests in reality. I decided to go to a jumpstart program the summer before my Freshman year of college with out connecting the dots that I’d be leaving my friends 6 weeks early. I studied abroad in Australia with out realizing what it really meant to leave my boyfriend behind for three months and go somewhere that I knew not a soul. That was one of most frightening drives to an airport I’ve ever made. I kept hoping my mom would give me an out, tell me I didn’t have to go. Time and again I make decisions that feel obvious and easy in the moment and then suddenly I’m thick in the change and suddenly the weight of the I realize I’d never fully considered the repercussions of my choice. I’m in part thankful for this. I would have missed out on so much richness and forward momentum were it not for this form of cognitive dissonance.

While I still return to that peanut butter green smoothie now and again, I’ve evolved in my smoothie making. This was the smoothie of last summer and the smoothie that marks the beginning of my truly falling in love with not only my Bozeman life, but also my Bozeman ‘dungeon.’ I was newly single, living alone, running a lot and running on serious mountain trails for the first time. I was grieving the loss of said relationship, but I was also growing back into myself and taking ownership of my life in new ways. I vowed to live simultaneously with my grief and joy. I planted seeds in my garden and watered them barefoot in the early mornings, wide-eyed every time I found a new green shoot. I ate toast and smoothies or matcha wrapped in a blanket and the first rays of sun on the porch each morning. Soon I filled that porch with friends. The first time I made this smoothie the word that came to mind was magic. Maybe my tastebuds were amplified by my personal rejuvenation or maybe it really is a bit magical. I don’t use that word lightly. I’m not really one of those people who promises you life changing anything, but this time in my life was life changing and I still make this and think, damn this is good.