The Stanley

The Stanley

There are places in this world that hold pieces of us. Places we return to, sometimes without fully understanding why. Places that quietly witness the different versions of ourselves throughout our lives.

For me, one of those places has always been The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. With her magnificent old white architecture coming into view as you round the mountain on your way into town, she stands majestically against the backdrop of the Rockies. The elk wandering freely across her grounds, their haunting bugles echoing through the cold mountain air at night, only add to her mystery and magic. There was always something about that first glimpse of her that felt like coming home. And maybe I was. For so long she held the parts of me that longed for freedom, ease, abundance, and adventure—the very qualities that have since become part of my everyday life.

I began staying here several years ago, during a time when I was living a life that didn't feel like my own. I was married, co-owning restaurants and carrying all the responsibilities that came with them, while living a life shaped by someone else's dreams, in a place that never quite felt like home, no matter how hard I tried.

So I would plan a yearly trip back to the mountains of Colorado, a place I had lived for 23 years and knew well.

And for two weeks I escaped the life I was creating for someone else.

Over the years, The Stanley became my sanctuary. I knew the back entrances, the little passageways, and the quiet corners most visitors never seemed to be aware of. I knew how to find the secluded courtyard, where I could sit beside the fire, sometimes entirely alone. I would wake at four in the morning and wander the hallways of this magnificent, supposedly haunted old hotel while the rest of the world slept.

There was something quite magical about that, those times between her and me.

The history. The mystery. The feeling that I had discovered something that belonged just to me. Every year, I looked forward to returning, to telling her my secrets and sharing how much closer I was becoming to the freedom I once could only imagine. And somehow, I felt as though she had been quietly cheering me on all along.

Those early escapes eventually became part of a much larger journey of self-discovery and spiritual awakening.

So many different versions of me have walked those hallways. The woman who was searching for freedom, the woman who was beginning to find herself, and eventually, the woman who had finally created a life she didn't have to run from any longer.

Each year, I would return to her, find my footing, and take stock of the woman I was becoming. She was my constant in a life undergoing extraordinary change. A place where I could steady myself before stepping back into the uncertainty of creating an entirely new life.

And through it all, The Stanley had remained the same.

Until now.

This year I arrived to discover construction cranes, concrete being poured, familiar entrances closed, and my beloved courtyard torn apart. The little hidden world I had come to know was disappearing.

I understand that historic properties require money to survive. I understand that businesses must evolve. I get it. But intellectual understanding and emotional experience are two very different things. The mind can make perfect sense of something while the heart struggles to accept it.

Standing there, by my hotel window, watching construction workers carelessly dismantle the spaces I had come to regard as sacred, pouring cold concrete where so much magic had once lived, was shocking. I wasn't ready for this and didn't know quite how to take it in.

And yet, the work continued. The cranes kept moving, the concrete kept pouring, and I realized there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it.

It reminded me of something people often describe when someone they love dies. Their world has come to a sudden halt, yet everyone else's carries on as though nothing has happened.

And there I stood, quietly grieving something that the rest of the world didn't seem to even notice was being lost forever.

I stayed with the sadness, the helplessness, and the strange grief of losing something that had never truly belonged to me, yet had somehow become such a meaningful part of my journey.

When the sadness began to settle, I found myself searching for the deeper meaning, as I have done so often throughout this journey of becoming. And there it was. I had done it. I had come full circle.

I had created the life I once came here to dream about. And she had been there through it all, quietly witnessing every step of my journey.

I now live an entirely different life, thousands of miles away from where I had started, in a place as magical as she was.

The freedom, the ease, the access to nature, the sense of belonging I once traveled so far to feel had become part of my everyday life.

Maybe I needed to return one last time, not to find something I was missing, but to be reminded of how far I had come.

So I wandered all four floors one last time. I rode the old-fashioned elevator, sat for a while beside the fireplace, slowly and intentionally climbed the grand staircase, and retraced those familiar hallways, stopping along the way at room #1408 to pay a little tribute to Stephen King, whose imagination helped make this extraordinary old hotel legendary.

I thanked her for her magic, for the shelter I felt in her all those times, and we said our goodbyes.

So, will I come back? I don't know.

Something tells me that she and I may be done here. At least that version of her.

Perhaps we've given each other everything we were meant to.

And sometimes, the most beautiful endings aren't the ones we fight to prevent, but the ones we can finally embrace.

With gratitude. With sadness. And with the quiet understanding that it's time.

And somewhere along the way, I realized I wasn't simply grieving The Stanley as she had once been. I was also honoring the woman I had once been, the woman who had needed her to stay the same while she found the courage to change.

Just Keep Going.

Arleen