I tend to fall hard when I fall. It's this thing I've always struggled with. My mom says it's because I wear my heart on my sleeve. My mom is smart.
Anyway in an effort to, you know survive the winter Chicago evil cold, I decided to visit friends who live in California and for work. While I was there, something strange happened.
I fell in love.
I'm not sure how you feel about your city when you see it from a view in a plane, but whenever I look out the airplane window and down at the skyscrapers that build Chicago I always say: Huh, I love that city. I just adore it. I'm so lucky to be there. It's usually the same thing when I fly back in. I'll see it in the dark with all the twinkling lights that make just faint shapes of sky scrapers and I will just sigh.
Chicago and I have been in love for almost eight years.
I'm really quite lucky. Most people are never really in love with where they have lived. They just stay in a mediocre city or town because their job is there or they've been in that place for so long that leaving would be too much work or the idea of leaving something they've known for so long seems terrifying, but Chicago and I... well, Chicago and I have had our moments. We've defined each other in ups and downs, yet we've always seemed to make it through the changing seasons. We've given each other support in most opportunities. We've been patient for each other when things weren't really going the way we planned. Hell, we've financially support each other. That sexy tax hike that Chicago has going on never really got me going, but I still pay up when necessary. I quite honestly thought Chicago and I would be forever.
But forever is a really long time. Especially when you are talking about a relationship with a city.
My week in California felt like I was cheating. Each day I woke up in San Francisco or Los Angles I got this really butterfly-y feeling, right? You know, the same googles you get the minute before you kiss someone you want to kiss and not just kiss because they bought you dinner.
But I felt guilty. These feelings shouldn't be happening. You have a city waiting for you back home. You have a life. You have friends. You have Netflix episodes of Felicty all waiting for in Chicago. You can't do this... you can't be falling for another place...
For the final couple of days, I had a really hard time. Sitting out on patios doing work while the sun hit my face made me feel like a scoundrel for enjoying it. Putting my feet in the sand while finishing a latte made me feel like scum. Loving the possibility that on the weekends, instead of dodging cold spouts to head a bar, I could have a beer after surfing... I started getting upset.
Who do I think I am? I've worked hard to get to the dream I am living in Chicago! I've had to chase after so many directions to finally be in the direction I am in now. I've had to have so many jobs and so many heart breaks and so many bad apartments and so many learning lessons. Aren't I a tad bit too old to go chasing after those same passions in a whole new place? Do I go back to Chicago and stay with the one I love... or do I... run off with the one I have discovered?
On the last day, the morning before my departing flight from Los Angles, I went to a park close to my friend's house. It was sunny. I had an iced coffee. I was wearing sunglasses. The entire park was filled with moms and little kids running around squealing in the seventy degree weather.
As I started writing in my journal, I looked in front of me and saw a group of three kids playing with bubbles. They could be no older than four. There was two boys and one girl.
"Catch the bubbles! Catch them!" One of the kid's mom would squeal as the bubbles would fly around their faces and the little kids would try to clap their hands to snap the bubbles out of sight.
You should have seen how excited they would get when they'd catch the bubble they so wanted. It was as if it were the most satisfying moment in life. The bubble they wanted to catch was caught and they could move on to the next bubble to focus on.
But the little girl was focused on this one bubble. As she continued to chase it, she started chasing it in my direction. Then as it reached the bench of my picnic table, the wind blew the bubble far up and unreachable.
"You better try to get it!" I said enthusiastically to the little girl. She looked at me and reached her hand entirely focused on the round shape that was slowly flying off in to the sky. Her face twisted. She thought she was so close. She thought she was really going to make it happen. She believed that bubble was the bubble.
The bubble was impossible to get.
"Madeline! Come back over here! There are more bubbles back here to catch!" Her mom yelled from behind her.
But she watched the bubble float away. We both watched that damn bubble float away. Behind her, new bubbles were being made every single time her mom blew... but she wanted that bubble that now seemed so far away... so far gone... so unreachable. She just stood and stared with a look of "did I not try hard enough?".
And that's when I made my decision.