Two weeks ago, I took a 9-day "holiday" in Chicago to see my family during my school's Spring Break. I was really excited to go, first and foremost, because I was going to be meeting my first niece for the first time. It was a bonus that I was able to see every other member of my immediate family as well as a few friends. Below is something I journaled on the return plane to Prague.
* * * * *
Chicago has come and gone. How quickly the days continue to pass. I wish I could freeze a hundred little moments from this past week, pack them in a cooler with dry ice, and carry them as a carry-on to my life in Prague -- you know, so it'd be less like I'm leaving something separate back in Chicago. Maybe that is something I've learned this past week: that the bits and pieces of my life might be more connected in someone else's, but that, in mine, they break apart even more, they make me feel torn between multiple worlds. What worlds, though? It's not a perfect distinction, but maybe you can most closely sum them up as my life five years ago projected five years into the future, and what it actually is now.
The funny thing is, I don't know that five years ago I had any real picture in my head of where I'd be at 25, 30, 45, 80. I think there were faint whispers of my life dreams, but for once in my life I was too cowardly to let myself dream those dreams in color. Only retrospectively -- especially this week -- have I been able to wrap my head around my favorite things about my life then and how quickly it -- and my dreams along with it -- have changed. I don't know if this is a good or a bad thing because, as much as it's positive to recognize my own maturity and to hope in all the wonderful new things the Good Lord has handed me, it is still bittersweet to let go...and this particularly when it comes to the things, and most especially the people, I love most in the world.
I love Chicago. I mean, I really love it. I love that I called it home for eighteen years and have continued to give it the name "home" this many years later simply because the people I love are there, and so are the memories...and all of the loves that continue still. I love that, in Chicago, it's sunny even in Winter. I love walking over the expressway bridge toward the West Loop and having every nasal pore filled with Balmer chocolate yumminess. I love knowing I'm in a very multicultural place where I will see beautiful people of color every block instead of a boring blend of white, pink, and eggshell. I love running out to the lake, standing on the edge of the concrete harbors and staring out into the wide blue that could be an ocean -- I wouldn't know the difference -- and then turning round to be filled up with awe over the towering spires, neo-baroque, and romanticism of the famous Chicago skyline. I love walking/runnign back through the strip of Grant Park book-ended by the Sue-sporting Field Museum and the World Fair Navy Pier and feeling like I'm in a historical (and yet continually evolving) sort of paradise..but, more importantly really, it's a personally historical paradise, too -- one where high school friends have moved down to the El lines, and where Chicago-style deep dish can be found every however many blocks, and where I went to see a zillion Broadway-in-Chicago shows before I ever made it to 42nd Street. It's the place where I have been my most fit, my most focused, and, arguably, my most successful. It is where, once upon a time, I could have imagined myself taking my career and being contented strolling on the bike path during the hot nights of summer.
Perhaps that's where I've gone wrong. Maybe Chicago, and everything that goes along with it, has held this completely idealistic place in my mind. Not perfect, no, but maybe I believed it perfect for me, and that is what has broken away from my actual life story. This was a paradoxical week: on one end, I was 100% thankful to be "home," and on the other, I had to give in and admit to new dreams and new hopes, which was mildly overwhelming.
At almost 25 and being a self-proclaimed "city girl," the suburbs have never been quite for me, but, looking out both morning and night at the city skyline through my parents' West Loop window, neither was this city. I realized that I have too far removed myself from this place to have it be more to me than the place that I created I bunch of great memories, where I can return to those memories, where I first started dreaming, where I can return and remember what it is to dream, to trust, to leave and have it all be okay. I used to think that, after a stint in Europe, it would be nice to welcome back Chicago. This week, I realized that to move back now -- or maybe at any time -- as a single woman, I would feel like I'd left a piece of myself elsewhere...as if, now that I've experienced a life of mild adventure, I would be settling for less than what this flame inside me needs to burn. Maybe only sharing this city with someone special would be a big enough adventure for me to live there. So, for now, it's someone else's city. It's a city for my parents, who are in the middle of the biggest adventure of their lives; and for some of my friends -- both those from the 'burbs and those who've moved to the Land of Lincoln for the first time; and for more than three million others who call the city "home." And, for now, it is a great place to return, rest, vacation, and make some beautiful new memories before packing my bags and moving trustingly onward.
So that's what I did. I went "home" and had a wonderful week. I visited things familiar and comforting, like Target and Barnes & Noble. I feasted on all my favorite types of food: Japanese, Mexican, Thai, Peruvian, Italian, deep-dish, and American pub grub. I had meals and long walks with high school friends whose happiness is what makes for my own happiness. I attended an awesome church service at LaSalle and went window-shopping at Field's. I drove my car. I ran by my old workplace at Mayer Brown and chatted with old coworkers outside on their smoke break. Best of all, I created the best family memory of my life when all eight of us got together for the very first time. Daphne is clearly the most beautiful baby to have ever graced the planet and I love her to pieces, but my joy meeting her was tripled by seeing my brother and sister-in-law as her parents because, boy, did parenthood suit them! To get to witness their wonderful little family so young right alongside my parents and sister and brother-in-law was the greatest gift not only my mom (the weekend's birthday girl) could ask for, but the greatest for me, as well. It was enough to give enough rest to my heart, to even grow relationships with each of the members of my family a little bit, and to let me admit I was ready to return to Prague.
So, I was broken over leaving my family, and over having to admit that missing out on my family's life in the U.S. was going to be a "normal" thing for me, and over admitting that Chicago -- quite possibly the U.S., too -- will never be what it once was. I am too everywhere...And I am too adventurous...And I have learned enough to let God lead that my life will never quite be what, five years ago, I could have imagined it would be.
Instead, I write a new story. Is Prague "home," then? No, probably not yet. But I am moving toward calling it "home." Chances are good, though, that before I get there, I will pull up my roots, pack up, and head elsewhere. And maybe that's okay, too. After all, I've grown to believe that my restless, nomadic spirit is driven by the truth so honestly put by C.S. Lewis that, if we discover a desire within us that nothing in this world can satisfy, also we should begin to wonder if perhaps we were created for another world. I might be craving Home, but until then, I must be satisfied to always be redefining home on earth and to look forward to creating a million new wonderful memories with the new loves that enter my life. I am ready to dive into Prague and to fall in love with it as much as possible, to be in the now and not to be homesick for a life that, for me, isn't possible anymore.
So, now, after all this reflection, I am on the plane back to my temporary home, and I think I'm right where I should be.
* * * * *
Side note: Other than the jet-lag, my first week back in Prague was wonderfully normal. It was good to enter into that phase of living in Prague, for it to be a normal thing.
----------------
Now playing: Marc Cohn - Already Home
via FoxyTunes
Every girl's dream...?
10 years ago
