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Mia Garlock

Still Reeling

Last weekend was life changing. I’ve never felt so included with any group of people.

Yes I know, I’ve been home for a couple days now, and my posting has been sporadic at best, I’m sorry. Jet lag is rough, time zone changes are rough, the exhaustion is freaking real, and so is my sunburn.

I just feel like I didn’t spend enough time talking about it! I was so busy and involved last weekend that I didn’t get the chance to post every day like I originally planned to.

SO let’s recap one last time, and then I promise I’ll move on a bit.

Thursday, we took off in the middle of the night for Chicago. We didn’t think about the time difference, so we were literally sitting in the airport for 4 hours until our flight for Colorado. No regrets though, O’Hare is of course always a freaking madhouse, unless it’s 3am, which is the quietest I’ve ever seen it. It was actually kind of nice being in a very nearly empty airport. We took lots of airport pictures, because of course we did. What else were we to do to pass the time?!

We finally boarded at 7am, and lucky us, we both had aisle seats right beside each other. We were in the middle -back of the plane, so we had decent leg room, I had an empty seat right beside me, and the flight was smooth and enjoyable. I was actually pretty impressed with United on this flight, we had dark chocolate allergen free snacks and organic flavored seltzer water. When did they step that up?

We landed in Denver right before our fellow Valkyrie and ride-share landed, and once we gathered our belongings and did some mobility, we all found each other and instantly clicked. Val and Morgyn were hilarious, and I loved that we got along instantly without any awkwardness. Hugs abounded. We took a shuttle to the Ace car rental, and then piled into the van for the trek to Colorado Springs. The gasp LeAnna gusped, upon seeing the mountains. She just kept saying “oh my gods! holy shit! look at them!” She had never been that far out west before, and was stunned by the beauty of the high plains desert. I’ve been there before, but it never stops being beautiful. The desert isn’t my favorite, I wont lie, I’m much more the PNW moss dripping from the forest kind of girl, but I won’t deny the beauty of the red rock and the sage brush, or the snow capped mountains that hug Colorado close.

We stopped at a restaurant to have lunch and one of Val’s friends came to say hi and grub down with us too. It was a neat little stop, like a big warehouse full of shops and restaurants and little seating spaces. We had some bomb mexican-american food, and non alcoholic honeysuckle margaritas. We all started sharing aspects of our lives, and chatting and bonding over similarities. I was so happy that we all clicked, and the conversation flowed easily and readily. My habit of telling weird or off the wall jokes was widely accepted and I actually felt like I belonged with these people I had traveled to meet with. An occurrence that is rare, if I do say so myself. We also stopped in an adorable book shop that was there in the same building

Back on the road, Colorado Springs was only an hour and a half drive from Denver, so we weren’t in the car forever, which was nice, after the airport. Travel is rough on my body most of the time, I’m too keyed up to sleep or nap, but exhausted with hauling myself and my belongings across terminals and through security, and being squashed into spaces almost too small, next to strangers, my hyper vigilance on high alert mode, making sure we’re safe and have what we need, and none of our belongings are scattered to the wind. We pulled into our hotel, and Sam and her sisters were all sitting in the lobby, bright eyed and excited for the weekend just as much as we were.

We hugged and were introduced to each other and got checked into our rooms. I didn’t take any pictures of our hotel room, but it was beautiful. Small and efficient, there was a vanity sink, mini fridge, tiled shower stall with a barn-slide door to close it, a big soft duvet covered bed with some of the most glorious pillows I’ve ever slept on. The bed was set against the wall and sliding door, in a wooden alcove. It was very natural and minimalistic, and bright, with tons of storage shelves and spaces to put things. LeAnna and I moved right on in, unpacking for the full five days into drawers and shelves, and loving the hotel room we had. We both had stupid grins our faces because we were actually in Colorado, after months of planning and saving and scraping our resources together, we freaking made it!

That first night there were no group dinner plans, as most of the Valkyries wouldn’t be arriving until the next day. We were so tired anyway that once we were unpacked and showered (absolute bliss, the shower was amazing) we grabbed a smoked salmon and farrow salad downstairs at the hotel restaurant, and then promptly dove into bed and passed out for the next 12 hours. Yes, 12 hours. We were exhausted.

The next day we went wandering in the downtown area where our hotel was at. We found some cute shops, and a sushi bar. A gourmet kitchen supply shop where we were literally lost for an hour, swooning over all the gorgeous kitchen gadgetry and Le Creuset cast irons. Then we stumbled upon a shop of Odditities and Curiosities, a dark painted quirky shop full of butterfly wings, and vials of snake skins, there was a china cabinet filled with small terrariums of spiders and tarantulas, an herbal apothecary, and tons of art prints. LeAnna and I spent a good hour in there wandering around, and grabbed some crystals for the kids as souvenirs, and a pin for myself, because it reminded me of Nesta.

We grabbed sushi, which was expensive as can be, so we just shared a spicy tuna roll and some maki pieces, and walked back to the hotel. Any grocery or pharmacy or other convenience store type place was down the highway, and not within a reasonable or safe walking distance. Then we tried to check out the Metro Bus, but it would have turned a 10 minute ride into a 35 minute ride, and neither of us was down with that. It was decided that we would have to arrange for an uber, lyft, or ride with a Valkyrie with a car, to get anywhere not on that side of town.

After exploring downtown all day, we went back to the hotel and arranged an uber to Trader Joes. We wanted to get some snacks and food items for the mountain on Sunday, and lunches the next couple days. Eating out is expensive and we wanted our money for dinners, shopping, and the tattoos after the mountain. Once we unloaded our groceries into the mini fridge and onto the shelves like good hobbits

we got dressed for the meet and greet at 5:30pm, where we would meet everyone who was to be part of the weekend, save for a few who would arrive early in the morning the next day. To the side of the main lobby and restaurant counter, was a big green house with tons of house plants hanging from the rafters and tables and seating beneath it. We pushed two big tables together for our group, and everyone slowly trickled in from their rooms upstairs. Everyone who came in had huge grins on their faces, as if finally being there was just as exciting and surreal for them as it was for me. My face hurt from all the smiling and laughter, elated to finally have faces to put to the personalities I was talking to on the internet for the last 8 months.

The genuine joy and authenticity of each person who was there, was beautiful to behold, to be part of. Everyone was excited to be there, everyone was comfortable around each other, cracking jokes, banding together in little groups, but also floating amongst them, able to converse easily with every Valkyrie in attendance. We were all so open and welcoming and excited and genuine, and bubbling over with it. The chaotic goblin energy we all possessed was a tangible, living thing in the room.

Sam, Bex, Val, and Carolyn were the Trip Committee, the organizers of the weekend events, and they came in with armfuls of Valkyrie Squad totes filled with goodies for all of us. Those of us getting tattoos, got some organic tattoo balm, we got stickers for the hike, swords from Vas, bookmarks from LeAnna, some lotion, body wash, and soaking salts from Valkyrie Cassie’s business (which smells incredible, I gotta ask her for more of that!) and a fun Coffee/Tea Card. Not shocking, I got Emerie, who drinks Pu-erh tea, which is what I drink every day, of course.

After the meet and greet, we paused to deposit our swag bags in our hotel room, and went out to dinner with everyone at an interesting restaurant hub called Coti, which was like a giant warehouse building with multiple restaurants and bars, and common seating. There was live music, and a salsa dance lesson in the back, several Valkyries beelined it for the dance floor. I was more interested in the Salmon Poke bowl from the Hawaiian place, and I was so glad I got it because it was amazing.

We were all shouting at each other because it was so loud inside, but it was fun nonetheless. A group of us did decide to leave at around 9:30pm though, because it was late for us out of towners from a different time zone, and we were ready to hit the hay.

The next morning, we had breakfast with a handful of Valkyries in the hotel, and then made plans to get to Goodwill and go thrifting to kill a few hours in the morning before our Jewelry event in the afternoon. We were going to a place called Supraliminal, where we were getting permanent jewelry with a bunch of Valkyries. We scored huge at Goodwill! I found Popfit and Athletica leggings, a Fabletics sports bra, a black stretchy t shirt fabric jumper, an adorable linen dress, and a small black leather cross body purse that I absolutely adore, and the exact water bottle I was going to order off Amazon, but for $3, and not $34. Uh, SCORE! I was a little bummed about not getting boots, but the rest of my haul was so good I didn’t care.

We were fashionably late to the jewelry party, but not so late that we missed it. We did forget to bring our ACOSF books, they were in the hotel room, but we signed everyone’s books while we were there. Like a yearbook, but not. Everyone wrote heartfelt things, highlighted quotes, and signed their names in each others copies, I just had to bring my book to dinner that night instead. I got called pretty quickly to get my bracelet, a black spinel and delicate gold chain. I was buzzing with excitement, and felt like it was a big deal when I got my bracelet welded together on my wrist. Sam and LeAnna were both standing behind me as the jeweler worked his magic, and Sam had her hand on my back, and it felt like a very Mother of Valkyries moment. It felt important somehow, like being there was important, and being part of this was important. Every time I look down at my wrist I get that feeling all over again.

We were starving when we got back to the hotel after the jewelry event, our goodwill items in tow. Thankfully we grabbed frozen Indian food from TJ’s and our friend Val had a microwave in their room. We had a fridge but no microwave, so we had to commandeer theirs and made their room smell like delicious Indian food. We had butter chicken and rice, biryani, paneer, and garlic naan, and boy did we pig out. We ate everything. No regrets, we were stuffed to the max. And it was like 3:30pm, so we both knew we weren’t eating dinner that night, we ate so much food.

We caught a ride with Carolyn, a Valkyrie I work with on the podcast, and who lives in the Colorado Springs area, and went to dinner. An old school that was cleaned up and they moved a distillery into the basement, and a pub upstairs, and a few other small shops and restaurants in it too. It was Adult Prom or something locally too, so there were all kinds of people dolled up and dressed to the nines for the evening. I caught a few pictures of some guys in interesting tuxedos.

I got my book signed at dinner that night. Morgyn played a game with an older gentleman, I don’t know if it was shuffleboard or what it was called, but there was a big long table set up and they played a few games. LeAnna and I drank root beer floats that were incredibly sweet, and hung out with everyone until they were ready to take off. I haven’t read through it yet, all the signings, I just know someone is going to make me cry.

The next day was the incline hike, which I’ve already posted about. I’m so impressed with all of us, and impressed with myself. I climbed that mountain while on my period! I spent eight hours up there, helping my friends, and laughing, and joking around, singing, and twerking our way up the steps. I’ll never forget it.

My tattoo is healing well, I love it. I love looking at myself in the mirror because I can see it sitting there, on my pulse. I chose that spot for a reason, because I want to always feel it in my heartbeat. That feeling of togetherness, genuine friendship, pride, strength, and sheer joy, that we all felt last weekend. I want to always remember it.

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