Happy and Sad at the Same Time: My Fight to Call Chicago Home

Chicago, as Kacey Musgraves so eloquently said, “you got me smiling with tears in my eyes.” You give me immense joy. I feel pride as I navigate driving downtown and nailing parallel parking (on the 3rd try). The sound of the train and someone saying “drink when the train passes” and the way it makes me laugh, like one bad dad joke.

I want to call you home so desperately. I want to feel one with you, to be someone who is apart of the city, to not look up when I hear the train overhead because I’ve grown accustomed to it. Or to understand when to cross the street and separate myself from the tourists and instead be a local the tourists want to follow. But I’m not there. I’m in you but I’m not you. You have this tough exterior to crack, all while being coolly approachable but ready to test our character and grit to see if you deserve to be called a Chicagoan.

I think you see through me and know I’m not sure who I am in this moment. You stare right down into my soul to ask me who I am and I can only partially answer that. I knew who I was before I moved to you.

The First Weekend I Moved

I had a facial and waxing appointment in two different neighborhoods. I parked directly in the middle and walked to both appointments. It was a quintessential Chicago fall day, one of the last ones before winter set in. As I sat outside in 28F weather, drinking iced coffee, I shivered to keep myself warm. I looked up and directly down the street as I ate my pulled pork burrito from Broad Shoulders Coffee. From there I LISTENED to the city. I listened to every horn honk, walking conversation and footsteps hitting the pavement. Soaking up the energy. I soaked up everything I could. I never wanted to forget what that cold but invigorating moment that was.

Sitting there I felt so alive, so happy and yet sad that I knew it wasn’t home yet. Home wasn’t in Kansas, I knew that the moment I closed my door to start my journey to Chicago.

As much as I know Kansas isn’t my home, Chicago doesn’t feel like home yet. The transition into a new era of my life and new location hasn’t been the easy pick-up-and-go-and-immediately-be-settled I was used to when I was moving in Kansas. Everything is different. The shrapnel of blowing up my life up from the last two years falls from the sky into my lap out of nowhere

Home is wherever I’m with you

Ah, home, let me come home

Home is wherever I’m with you

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

I know I should be here, but I don’t know why. I think Chicago knows I don’t know why and around every windy corner forces me to think about the unknown, the why. Every time I visit a new borough I wonder if that is where the next big moment in my life is going to take place. Everything holds so much potential energy. I want to soak it all in and bottle the potential energy I feel.

Chicago, Will You Be My Home?

Chicago, consider this your official proposition. Will you please let me call you home? Will you let me in? I promise you I have the Midwest grit you have to develop in others. I know what a privilege it is to call you home. Can you please just give me a chance?

In a way I’ve never had to plead for a man to give me chance to show them how great we can be together, I’m asking you Chicago. We could be really great together. IF YOU JUST LET ME IN. I promise to brush up on my parallel parking skills (for real, I started this weekend). I’ll do whatever you want.

Let’s try this again this weekend, and the next, and the next and the next. I think we could be really great together.