Denver, I'm Leaving You

I always say moving is like New Year’s Day. It’s a fresh start. A new beginning. I get excited about moving (something I’ve done 22 times in my life – I imagine way over the average for most people my age). 

Remember when you’re jumping from elementary school to middle school or middle school to high school? There’s this idea that you can reinvent yourself. Even though you will largely exist in the same social sphere, you can start anew. It’s a time to establish new patterns and goals. There’s this aura of unlimited possibility. 

Sometimes. 

Other times New Year’s Day is just a reminder of the 12-months you just survived. Sometimes changing schools means leaving the teachers, peers, and classes you loved. Sometimes moving is an acceptance that things didn’t work out the way you’d hoped; it’s a retreat – and not the upscale kind private coaching companies do at luxury hotels.

I left Denver.

And even though I needed to leave the apartment I was in for safety and health, it doesn’t feel good. When I moved to Denver I had all these ideas about the gaps in my life being filled.

I thought maybe I’d find my community. I thought I might find a good relationship. I thought for sure the music scene would embrace me over time. I guess I thought I’d find my footing and my life would start to make sense to me.. It never really has.

And that sense-about-my-life continues to elude me. To borrow from 2025’s best picture winner, it feels like it’s always ‘one battle after another’. In my personal life. In my artistic pursuits. At work. In America. In the world. I’m quite sure many people feel this way. Our society is on a fast-track to some sort of cataclysmic collapse in my lifetime. But let’s put that on the docket and not get side-tracked.

It’s “hard out there” as they say. And I have little doubt that it’s harder for many than it ever has been for me. But it’s also harder for me than it has been for many. Comparison is a fickle bitch. We can only truly, fully understand our own experience.

Sometimes I think about people who grew up actually wealthy. They’ve had financial security their whole life. They’ve never come close to experiencing having to skip out on hospital visits, meals, or social activities because of affordability. They were given the opportunity to fail and succeed without any potential great economic consequences. Let’s say this person loves soccer. Let’s call him Asher.

Asher plays in a club with the best coaches when he’s a toddler. He goes to good schools his entire childhood and eventually, because his parents see real potential in his athletic ability, they move close to the high school with the best soccer program in the state. 

The kid works his ass off. He does okay in his studies, but this soccer thing – that’s his passion. And he’s great at it. He works as hard as anyone. He wants it as much as anyone. And he’s a key leader as a Junior on a team set to play in the Division I CIF State Championship Soccer Game (I googled that). 

A week before the game he gets a terrible injury. It’s not his fault. He tears several ligaments and, while not life-threatening, he won’t play at State. In the end, these injuries will linger for years and his soccer career is cooked. Just like that in the dead of night, he’s played the last meaningful soccer game of his life. 

It’s devastating. It’s the hardest thing he’s ever dealt with. It’s an emotional hardship that no amount of money and security can really heal. And I understand that. I get those feelings are real and valid. I think they could mess with that kid’s psyche the rest of his life.

His pain is so very real.

But also..

He has a great chance of coming out just fine on the other end. He’ll still go to University to get a degree. He’ll own a home in his 20’s. He’ll probably get married and have children and continue his generational wealth, even if it takes him a decade to find his footing in his career. He’ll get excellent medical care for the injuries and all the physical and emotional rehab he could ever want in the process of healing from this terrible time of life. While his emotional state and mental health are no guarantee to bounce back – those things are pretty nuanced and I don’t think well understood yet in general – everything else around him will be put in place to give him the best chance possible at a fulfilling life, despite his soccer dreams coming to an end. 

If he’s not affluent, it’s considerably less likely he ever recovers from this – emotionally, physically, and economically. Let’s make the poor version of this kid a non-binary teenager named Kye.

Kye doesn’t go to university without an athletic scholarship. They don’t get the best medical care. They get no therapy. Even their emotional support at home is likely not as strong (though, that could go either way). This could ruin their life before it even began. Asher’s soccer career is cooked. But Kye’s life might be cooked.

And that feeling is probably a whole lot worse. But the truth is Asher could never possibly understand that feeling. He only knows the world he’s been raised in. He’s only actually felt the pain he’s experienced. And to him his pain is as real as Kye’s. 

As long as I can remember, I dedicated my life to the arts. I didn’t know it for a long time. I called it something else. But I was writing books and plays and harmonica songs as a toddler. I was planning backyard wrestling events and making videos and promoting live events for it in middle school. I dedicated my whole high school life to my band. And I’m the guy who kept doing it all as an adult. I never stopped. I never quit. I never will.

And every time I make a big life change it feels like maybe, after all these years, this is the catalyst that changes my ever-idle trajectory.

Two-and-a-half years ago, I thought moving to Denver would turn the tide. But I leave Denver in shame, with a set of facts that make believing in myself harder than anytime before. Here’s ten of those facts:

FACT 1: I’m two-and-half years older than I was two-and-a-half years ago

FACT 2: No one in Denver wanted to hire me full-time, despite over 300 

applications in 7-months. I couldn’t find a job.

FACT 3: I am owed a lot of money

FACT 4: In turn, I owe a lot of money

FACT 5: The people who “matter” (heavy on the air-quotes) in the music and film scene in this state never really gave me the time of day. 

SIDE TANGENT: FOCOMX is a local Fort Collins-based Music Festival that books “over 450” local Colorado artists. Four-hundred and fifty. This is the second year in a row my band YAN YEZ has been left off the bill – and just to keep the tiny ounce of self-respect I have remaining, I’m just going to say – fuck that. There are not 450 better live acts in the state alone than YAN YEZ. And that’s a hill I’ll die a very bloody death on. Meanwhile, Justin Bieber gets paid 10 Million dollars to fuck around on youtube and read lyrics off his stage monitors. Yes I said read lyrics off his stage monitors. Watch it back.

FACT 6: I had to get surgery last August, I haven’t recovered

FACT 7: I got in a car accident that consumed months of my life

FACT 8: My apartment was roach infested

FACT 9: I was harassed and physically threatened by a gang of homophobes in my building

FACT 10: I’m disappointed in myself – who I am and the life I’ve built. 

_________________

“I don’t like the way it’s,

I don’t like the way it’s,

I don’t like the way it’s looking

I get caught looking in the mirror on the regular.

And what I see there resembles some competitor.

I see things behind things behind things.

And there are rings within rings within rings.”

–Bon Iver

_________________

Is that dramatic? To be honest, I think I put it all lightly. But that’s my experience. I’m not even bringing my daughter into this conversation and that adds about 50 more, much heavier, bullet points. This is the only life I know. I’m not Asher. I’m not Kye. I’m just Nico. But like Kye getting injured before their big soccer matchup.. I’m not sure how I ever come back from this.

I mentioned earlier it took me a long time to recognize that what I was, was an artist. I think that’s because I was never great at drawing growing up. And in simple kid terms, an artist is the kid in class who’s good at drawing. But art is so multifaceted, complex, and vast.

A quick google search will define art as “the conscious use of skill, imagination, and craft to create objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others, often focusing on aesthetic beauty, emotional power, or conceptual meaning.”

I don’t know what my place in this world is exactly. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel I belong or if any of my most-cosmic dreams will come true. But I think throughout my time in Denver I came to realize this – there is no ‘separating the art from the artist’ with me. My whole life is my art. It’s all I know. It’s all I am. It’s why it hurts so much when I’m left out of the Fort Collins four-hundred-and-fifty club. But it’s also why I can write about how it feels to be excluded like that. It's why I wrote this letter. I needed it to get closure from the last two year chapter of my life; and to move on. Writing and creating helps me heal. It’s as much a part of me as my lungs or my hands or my ability to run. I take a while to think about everything that’s happened. Then, sometime after all the meandering, rabbit trails, and references, I get to how I feel. As simple as can be..

I feel overlooked and undervalued. 

I also feel overrated.

I feel personal responsibility for every hardship I’ve ever endured.

I also feel like I didn’t get a fair shake at life.

It’s complicated, isn’t it – living? I don’t know your journey; the depth of pain in your hardest moments. The glory of your victories. The love you hold for those closest. You’re not Asher or Kye or Nico. I could never really know. 

But I hope for you a fulfilling life. I hope it for us all.

To wrap up: I wanted to say Goodbye, Denver. I’m not far, just about an hour away. I’ll be around, if you need me. If you want me. I’m sorry we weren’t better to each other. I’ll miss the Crema crew, and game days at Tight End, and walkability, and my runs at Curtis-Mestizo, and the South Broadway Goodwill and the Birria Tacos across the street, and Switchyards, and sunday morning Acai Bowls with the kiddo, and being so close to home after a performance, and Elitches at Summertime, and scootering to festivals, and those Monday music meetups, and the very few friends I made along the way. 

Time to move forward. New patterns. They say your whole life can change in one day.

What I’m saying now is: Happy New Year, from Nico, in April.