I hated life back in my home state.
I grew up in a tiny town where you couldn’t hide secrets from anyone.
My graduating class consisted of only a handful of people, all of which I had known since elementary school. I would dream about the day of finally getting out of that place to attend college on the opposite side of the country, but that day never came. Instead, I saved a lot of money by going to an in-state university and using my scholarship money there instead of at a college that cost three to four times as much for each semester. Whenever my college friends and I would smoke cannabis in our dorm rooms, we would worry about campus police showing up unannounced and arresting us on the spot. I kept fantasizing about moving to Denver, Colorado after graduating from undergraduate college. I figured I could attend the University of Colorado in either Boulder or Denver to attend graduate school in economics. In reality, I ended up in Aurora, but not because of college. I accepted a job that is located right along the border of Aurora and Denver. However, most of the businesses—especially cannabis dispensaries—are located within Denver instead of Aurora. One of my all time favorite cannabis dispensaries is in Heather Gardens right off Interstate 225. There’s another weed store a few blocks north in Heather Ridge that I like to visit as well. One of my favorite things to do during the warm season is to take a bong and a jar of cannabis flower buds with me to the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge to go hiking for the day.