What I'll Miss...

Goodbye Chicago.

Welp, this is it. Somewhere over the Great Plains, me and two very opinionated toddlers are HOPEFULLY wearing our listening ears and about to touch down in Kansas. Almost eleven years ago, I flew to Chicago with a suitcase, an air mattress and a cow costume (because it was Halloween and I wouldn’t know how to dress sexy if my life depended on it) and now I’m flying back with two and a half kids and a car following a few days behind with two cats, a fish and a husband who loves jam bands.

If I told that twenty-three-year-old girl this is how her Chicago journey would end, I don’t know if she’d believe me. For one, I definitely assumed the Chicago winters would break me sooner. For another, my husband is very attached to camouflage cargo shorts?? But I do think she knew I’d eventually head home. Maybe that’s why this has been so “easy”—it felt inevitable.

That or I’m just slightly ahead of my nervous breakdown. Who’s to say!

I can thank my therapist for my emotions feeling appropriately regulated as I write this (that and the art of denial.) Did I cry during our last bath time? Of course. Did I get emotional when Coco announced she wanted to stay in Chicago forever? You bet. But this oddly feels like I’m riding a train that’s been in motion the whole time. It was just passing through, maybe running longer than I expected, bopping around with no sense of urgency, but now suddenly its picked up momentum. For three year’s we were “looking” at houses aka becoming unhealthily attached to Zillow, and then suddenly we’d made an offer and it was just….accepted. We were prepared to lose a few, to become desperate, but like I said, the universe just lined things up in a way that felt too easy. It made it feel wrong to fully panic. So I’m choosing not to second guess everything, despite constantly worrying that this is the right thing.

But don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll panic eventually.

While trying to process this goodbye, I’ve been thinking about Nora Ephron’s “What I’ll Miss” essay. This move is obviously a very different form of nostalgia, not nearly as sad thank goodness, but it’s a huge chapter of my life that is just…ending. In some ways it feels more drastic than marriage, more jarring than kids. My brain has turned into an old family video, a compilation of memories and moments and bars and late nights and long brunches and faces I won’t always be able to place, constantly playing, ensuring I tear up at the drop of a hat.

But still, I’m not going to panic.

I arrived here without a job, without a plan, with a few friends and just the dream of “discovering” myself, whatever the hell that meant. There was a fearlessness in that, the willingness to come here without any sort of plan. The naivety is charming—I was essentially a baby. There’s a lot more planning that’s going into this move (though not as much as you’d expect — poor baby #3 still needs an OBGYN), but my therapist would tell me this is just as brave. Just as drastic. And maybe the fear comes from some of that naivety drifting away. The desire for change is what drove me here—the dream of settling down is what sends me back. But I also know I can’t compare what was to what is and I can’t compare what we’ve had here to what we’ll be like there.

I told my therapist I’d keep her voice in my head, reminding myself to be where my feet are. To let things be what they are and try not to stress about the things ten steps ahead, things that might not even happen. To go easy on myself, to let multiple feelings exist at one. So that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m sad, but at peace. Scared, but excited. Hormonal on top of it all.

So as we close this chapter and enter another, I want to say thank you to Chicago. You gave me my family.

What I’ll Miss….Chicago Edition

• my friends

• our school (KCC’s Academy)

• my therapist

• Chicago Summers (if you know, you know)

• the Hangee Uppee

• long, bottomless brunches at Orsos

• my hair girl (goldenerahair—she’s even a Bravo fan!)

• the walk to school that took eight minutes but Frankie dragged on for at least twenty because we had to stop at the stoop where she likes to dance

• the Lodge where I met Bill (and Eddie Vedar and John Cusack)

• my first apartment

• our first apartment

• our second apartment that looked like it belonged in You’ve Got Mail

• the taco place around the corner

• the Christmas train

• our pediatrician

• how people in our neighborhood decorate more for Halloween than they do Christmas (and I hate Halloween)

• crepes at the farmers’ market

• Newman the Newfoundland

• Trivia Nights

• Happy Camper ranch

• darts at Gracie’s

• the back bar at Kincaids

• 14 West Elm

• Bill and I getting day drunk at our pool

• Quartino’s bacon wrapped dates

• the Zebra Lounge

• Division Street (when it was fun)

• the view from my delivery room

• when they shut down the streets downtown after Covid and made everywhere patios

• the penguins at the zoo

• Viagra Triangle people watching

• people crowded onto our back porch

• the block party

• fireworks at the lake

• the alley behind the lodge where Bill and I first kissed (it was terrible)

And now, because I think my therapist would recommend it and my motto moving forward until I find a new therapist is “what would Maureen say?”…

Things I’m Looking Forward To…

• Grandparents day at school

• finding a new restaurant for family dinners

• our backyard

• joining the PTA (jk, I could never)

• seeing old friends

• making new friends

• having a guest room for our Chicago friends

• antiquing

• a driveway

• a garage

• having a “village”

• bringing the new baby home

• talking about getting a dog

• talking about what we want to do to the kitchen

• dance classes

• tennis lessons

• soccer after school

• meeting our neighbors

• throwing a big birthday party

• the swing set

• girls’ nights

• built in babysitters

• saying “I grew up here”

• TWO Christmas trees (at least)

• Kindergarten orientation

• enjoying our montage

• being where my feet are