This past week was my 21st birthday, and even though I hadn’t really planned anything out for it, the whole week turned out to be jam-packed with adventures!!

 To start out, at midnight, my roommates, my boyfriend and I headed out to the Dark Horse to celebrate my first drink. (Pardon my wethead, I had just gotten back from teaching tap and needed to freshen up first!)

 After getting some free birthday shots of rum and cherry limeade, we headed back home to get some rest for the big day!!

 I woke up, got ready, dressed in some funky leggings and my favorite cozy sweater, and headed to school. I had such a wonderful day full of happy birthday songs, hugs, laughs, relaxation, and happiness. One of the best parts was at the end of my day, during my house dance class, when my teacher from my middle school hip-hop days was our substitute and made me freestyle in a cypher made of my dancemates!! It was hilarious and so much fun, and I actually pulled off some floorwork! : )

 After my classes, my mom picked Michael and I up and took everyone down to BJ’s Restaurant for some birthday dinner. This was my first time ordering off the drink menu, and our waiter, Joe, was hilarious in asking me for my I.D. and was overall such a fantastic waiter!! We ordered some delicious food, dessert, and drinks of course!

My drink was a strawberry-pineapple-vodka mix which basically was a delicious alcoholic smoothie, and my mom had the blue raspberry drink which was also scrumptious!

After dinner, we all headed back home and relaxed for the rest of the night. Michael and I played some video games (We’ve been really into Cuphead recently), and started Season 2 of Stranger Things before hitting the hay.

Friday was an eventful day. My lovely, wonderful mother had bought me two experiences that I have been wanting for a very long time: a massage, and a trip into a sensory deprivation tank.

My first stop was at Colorado Freedom Massage, where I got one of the most intense massages of my life. My whole body has been pretty messed up recently, and I had so much tightness and misalignment, that my masseuse was barely applying any pressure and I was saying ouch. But, I told her that I needed to just get all of those kinks out, so she went for it and it was so bad that we were both in tears and hugging at the end of it. My tears from the pain, her tears from feeling bad for causing it! But again, it was for sure what I needed and we hugged it out afterwards with no hard feelings left behind. : )

Next up was one of the many highlights of my week, the sensory deprivation tank. Right after the massage, my family and I got some dinner and headed straight away to Healing Waters Float Studio, where we met some adorable turtles and were given the rundown of what we were about to experience.

To start us off, we were given the choice of two categories of sound: One ambient sound, and one type of binaural beat. Each sound played in a different ear, and were meant to stimulate your brain in different, meditative waves. I chose the sound of a rippling creek for my left ear, and binaural beats representing lucid dreaming for my right ear. This only lasted for 5 minutes, but we also were listening to them on an inversion table, which had us tilted about 20 degrees downwards, in order for our spine to relax and the heart and mind to start warming up. We were left alone once we were all set up, and given instructions for what to do after the sounds had stopped.

After that came the main event: The Float.

Once the sounds had stopped, we all gently tipped ourselves up, showered, placed some ear drops in our ears (to prevent the epsom salt from crystallizing), and slowly entered ourselves into the tank. You have to get in backwards, close the door, then lay down slowly with your hands and head being the last things to touch the water.

At first, I was starting to freak out, as I am somewhat claustrophobic and once you close yourself in, it is pitch black whether your eyes are open or closed. But, after reminding myself that it was just water, and I was completely safe, I slowly relaxed into floating effortlessly, with only my face being above the water and the sounds of my breath and my heartbeat. After 90 minutes, a really soft, sparkly song came on as the signal for us to get out, and honestly, I may do a whole other post on just this process because there was so much to unpack and discover that I can’t cover it all here!!

After cleaning ourselves off, we all collected in the main room and discussed our experiences. We each had different floats, with different temperature tanks, and they each were meant to help us in different ways. During our discussion however, I couldn’t help but look through the multitude of books on floating that were laid out in front of me, in particular the book titled Artwork from the Void.

This book was stuffed to the brim with drawings that people had created after their float. Not only were they unbelievably gorgeous and unique, but they also were very accurate in depicting what it feels like to be deprived of all of your senses.

I loved this experience so much that I already set up another appointment for December 1st, so prepare to see a post from me then about my second experience!!

Saturday I had work, and then I took most of the day to get my abundance of homework done, as I knew that the rest of my weekend would have more adventures awaiting me and I would probably forget about it! Also, my baby kitty Juniper cuddled me all day. *heart eyes*

After all the homework, I relaxed with Michael and waited for my friends to get out of a dance performance before joining them at Licence No. 1, a bar underneath a hotel in Boulder! I had the two drinks pictured here – Penicillin, which was a lemony drink, and Blood & Sand, which was an orange-cranberry drink. They both were delicious and I had a great time hanging out with my friends!!

The next day, I had bought tickets to the same performance that my friends had attended the night before: Parallax, an MFA show that my soon-to-be-graduated friends created! It was a terrific show, and at intermission I got to make this little paper flower! : )

After the show, I brought my friend Devan back to my place for some virtual reality and MarioKart Wii, and finally brought my birth-weekend to a close. As you can tell, my birthday celebration was long and full of fun, and I am so unbelievably grateful for all the memories I made over this past week!!

Back to school for my final week before Thanksgiving Break…yay!!

Talk to you soon,

R